And yet she had evidently nothing of the fluttered, flapping quality of a morsel of bunting in the wind; her manner expressed the repose and confidence which come from a large experience.

Experience, however, had not quenched her youth; it had simply made her sympathetic and supple.

She was in a word a woman of strong impulses kept in admirable order.

This commended itself to Isabel as an ideal combination.
The girl made these reflexions while the three ladies sat at their tea, but that ceremony was interrupted before long by the arrival of the great doctor from London, who had been immediately ushered into the drawing-room.

Mrs.Touchett took him off to the library for a private talk; and then Madame Merle and Isabel parted, to meet again at dinner.
The idea of seeing more of this interesting woman did much to mitigate Isabel's sense of the sadness now settling on Gardencourt.
When she came into the drawing-room before dinner she found the place empty; but in the course of a moment Ralph arrived.