Chapter 10

CHAPTER X

The day after her visit to Lockleigh she received a note from her
friend Miss Stackpole--a note of which the envelope, exhibiting
in conjunction the postmark of Liverpool and the neat calligraphy
of the quick-fingered Henrietta, caused her some liveliness of
emotion. "Here I am, my lovely friend," Miss Stackpole wrote; "I
managed to get off at last. I decided only the night before I
left New York--the Interviewer having come round to my figure. I
put a few things into a bag, like a veteran journalist, and came
down to the steamer in a street-car. Where are you and where can
we meet? I suppose you're visiting at some castle or other and
have already acquired the correct accent. Perhaps even you have
married a lord; I almost hope you have, for I want some
introductions to the first people and shall count on you for a
few. The Interviewer wants some light on the nobility. My first
impressions (of the people at large) are not rose-coloured; but I
wish to talk them over with you, and you know that, whatever I
am, at least I'm not superficial. I've also something very
particular to tell you. Do appoint a meeting as quickly as you
can; come to London (I should like so much to visit the sights
with you) or else let me come to you, wherever you are. I will do
so with pleasure; for you know everything interests me and I wish
to see as much as possible of the inner life."

Isabel judged best not to show this letter to her uncle; but she
acquainted him with its purport, and, as she expected, he begged
her instantly to assure Miss Stackpole, in his name, that he
should be delighted to receive her at Gardencourt. "Though she's
a literary lady," he said, "I suppose that, being an American,
she won't show me up, as that other one did. She has seen others
like me."

"She has seen no other so delightful!" Isabel answered; but she
was not altogether at ease about Henrietta's reproductive
instincts, which belonged to that side of her friend's character
which she regarded with least complacency. She wrote to Miss
Stackpole, however, that she would be very welcome under Mr.
Touchett's roof; and this alert young woman lost no time in
announcing her prompt approach. She had gone up to London, and it
was from that centre that she took the train for the station
nearest to Gardencourt, where Isabel and Ralph were in waiting to
receive her.

"Shall I love her or shall I hate her?" Ralph asked while they
moved along the platform.

"Whichever you do will matter very little to her," said Isabel.
"She doesn't care a straw what men think of her."

"As a man I'm bound to dislike her then. She must be a kind of
monster. Is she very ugly?"

"No, she's decidedly pretty."