3

So it came about that the three sisters once more sat in a hired
carriage and drove to Sales Hall. On the box was the son of the man
who had driven them years ago, and though the carriage was a new one
and the old horse had long been metamorphosed into food for the wild
animals in the Radstowe Zoo, this expedition was in many ways a
repetition of the other. Caroline and Sophia faced the horses and Rose
sat opposite her stepsisters, but now she did not listen to their talk
with ears stretched, not to miss a word, and she did not think her
companions as beautiful as princesses. It was she who might have been
a princess for another child, but she did not think of that. She
looked with amusement and with misplaced pity at the other two. It was
a September afternoon and they were very gaily dressed, and again
Caroline had a feather drooping over her hair, while Sophia, more
girlish, wore a wide hat with a blue bow, and both their parasols were
tilted as before against the sun. It seemed to Rose that even the cut
of their garments had not changed with time. The two had always the
appearance of fashion plates of twenty years ago, but no doubt of
their correctness ever entered their minds; and so they managed to
preserve their elegance, as though their belief in themselves were
strong enough to impose it on those who saw them. Without this faith,
the severity of Rose's black dress, filmy enough for the season but
daringly plain, must have rebuked them. The pearls in her ears and on
her neck were her only ornaments; her little hat, wreathed with a
cream feather, shaded her brow. She sat with the repose which was one
of her gifts.