Edmund and Lilian were slow to return, and Mrs. Touchett had an
hour's uninterrupted talk with her niece, who found her a strange
and interesting figure: a figure essentially--almost the first
she had ever met. She was as eccentric as Isabel had always
supposed; and hitherto, whenever the girl had heard people
described as eccentric, she had thought of them as offensive or
alarming. The term had always suggested to her something
grotesque and even sinister. But her aunt made it a matter of
high but easy irony, or comedy, and led her to ask herself if the
common tone, which was all she had known, had ever been as
interesting. No one certainly had on any occasion so held her as
this little thin-lipped, bright-eyed, foreign-looking woman, who
retrieved an insignificant appearance by a distinguished manner
and, sitting there in a well-worn waterproof, talked with
striking familiarity of the courts of Europe. There was nothing
flighty about Mrs. Touchett, but she recognised no social
superiors, and, judging the great ones of the earth in a way that
spoke of this, enjoyed the consciousness of making an impression
on a candid and susceptible mind. Isabel at first had answered a
good many questions, and it was from her answers apparently that
Mrs. Touchett derived a high opinion of her intelligence. But
after this she had asked a good many, and her aunt's answers,
whatever turn they took, struck her as food for deep reflexion.
Mrs. Touchett waited for the return of her other niece as long as
she thought reasonable, but as at six o'clock Mrs. Ludlow had not
come in she prepared to take her departure.

"Your sister must be a great gossip. Is she accustomed to staying
out so many hours?"