himself the husband of Bianca, her own sister.

The queer conceit came to Cecilia that it resembled Hilary. Its look
was kindly and uncertain; its colour a palish tan; the eyebrows of
its windows rather straight than arched, and those deep-set eyes, the
windows, twinkled hospitably; it had, as it were, a sparse moustache
and beard of creepers, and dark marks here and there, like the lines and
shadows on the faces of those who think too much. Beside it, and apart,
though connected by a passage, a studio stood, and about that studio--of
white rough-cast, with a black oak door, and peacock-blue paint--was
something a little hard and fugitive, well suited to Bianca, who used
it, indeed, to paint in. It seemed to stand, with its eyes on the house,
shrinking defiantly from too close company, as though it could not
entirely give itself to anything. Cecilia, who often worried over the
relations between her sister and her brother-in-law, suddenly felt how
fitting and symbolical this was.

But, mistrusting inspirations, which, experience told her, committed one
too much, she walked quickly up the stone-flagged pathway to the door.
Lying in the porch was a little moonlight-coloured lady bulldog, of
toy breed, who gazed up with eyes like agates, delicately waving her
bell-rope tail, as it was her habit to do towards everyone, for she had
been handed down clearer and paler with each generation, till she had at
last lost all the peculiar virtues of dogs that bait the bull.

Speaking the word "Miranda!" Mrs. Stephen Dallison tried to pat this
daughter of the house. The little bulldog withdrew from her caress,
being also unaccustomed to commit herself....

Mondays were Blanca's "days," and Cecilia made her way towards the