"That's the second time you have said that to me," her aunt rejoined."And yet you don't look at all stupid.""I'm not stupid; but I don't know anything about money.""Yes, that's the way you were brought up- as if you were to inherit a million.What have you in point of fact inherited?""I really can't tell you.You must ask Edmund and Lilian; they'll be back in half an hour.""In Florence we should call it a very bad house," said Mrs.
Touchett; "but here, I dare say, it will bring a high price.It ought to make a considerable sum for each of you.In addition to that you must have something else; it's most extraordinary your not knowing.The position's of value, and they'll probably pull it down and make a row of shops.I wonder you don't do that yourself; you might let the shops to great advantage."Isabel stared; the idea of letting shops was new to her."I hope they won't pull it down," she said; "I'm extremely fond of it.""I don't see what makes you fond of it; your father died here.""Yes, but I don't dislike it for that," the girl rather strangely returned."I like places in which things have happened- even if they're sad things.A great many people have died here; the place has been full of life.""Is that what you call being full of life?""I mean full of experience- of people's feelings and sorrows.And not of their sorrows only, for I've been very happy here as a child.""You should go to Florence if you like houses in which things have happened- especially deaths.I live in an old palace in which three people have been murdered; three that were known and I don't know how many more besides.""In an old palace?" Isabel repeated.
"Yes, my dear; a very different affair from this.This is very bourgeois."Isabel felt some emotion, for she had always thought highly of her grandmother's house.But the emotion was of a kind which led her to say: "I should like very much to go to Florence.""Well, if you'll be very good, and do everything I tell you I'll take you there," Mrs.Touchett declared.
Our young woman's emotion deepened; she flushed a little and smiled at her aunt in silence."Do everything you tell me? I don't think I can promise that.""No, you don't look like a person of that sort.You're fond of your own way; but it's not for me to blame you.""And yet, to go to Florence," the girl exclaimed in a moment, "I'd promise almost anything!"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 recognized 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 bad 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?""You've been out almost as long as she," Isabel replied; "she can have left the house but a short time before you came in."Mrs.Touchett looked at the girl without resentment; she appeared to enjoy a bold retort and to be disposed to be gracious."Perhaps she hasn't had so good an excuse as I.Tell her at any rate that she must come and see me this evening at that horrid hotel.She may bring her husband if she likes, but she needn't bring you.I shall see plenty of you later."
