I suppose I have some Vandaleur features, from an eerie little incident which befell me on the threshold of The Vine--an appropriate beginning to a life that always felt like a weird, shadowy dream.
I did not ring the bell of the outer gate on my arrival, because Adolphe (grown up, but with the old, ruddy boy's face on the top of his man's shoulders) was anxiously waiting for me, and devoted himself to my luggage, telling me that Master was in the garden.

Thither I ran so hastily, that a straggling sweetbriar caught my hat and my net, and dragged them off, sending my hair over my shoulders.

My hair is not long, however, like Eleanor's, and it curls, and I sometimes wear it loose; so I did not stop to rearrange it, but hurried on towards my great-grandfather, who was coming slowly to meet me from the other end of the terrace, his hands behind his back, as of old.

At least, I thought it was to meet me; but as he came near I saw that he was unconscious of my presence.

He looked very old, his face was pale and shrivelled, like a crumpled white kid glove; his wild blue eyes, insensible of what was before them, seemed intently fixed on something that no one else could see, and he was talking to himself, as we call it when folk talk with the invisible.
It was very silly, but I really felt the colour fading from my face with fright.