The afternoon was drawing to a close; the coarse, vivid grass and the slender tree-boles were gilded by the level sunbeams--gilded as with gold that was fresh from the mine. It was the hour at which ladies should come out for an airing and roll past a hedge of pedestrians, holding their parasols askance.
Here, however, Eugenia observed no indications of this custom, the absence of which was more anomalous as there was a charming avenue of remarkably graceful, arching elms in the most convenient contiguity to a large, cheerful street, in which, evidently, among the more prosperous members of the bourgeoisie, a great deal of pedestrianism went forward. Our friends passed out into this well lighted promenade, and Felix noticed a great many more pretty girls and called his sister's attention to them.
This latter measure, however, was superfluous; for the Baroness had inspected, narrowly, these charming young ladies.
"I feel an intimate conviction that our cousins are like that," said Felix.
The Baroness hoped so, but this is not what she said.
"They are very pretty," she said, "but they are mere little girls.
Where are the women--the women of thirty?"
"Of thirty-three, do you mean?" her brother was going to ask; for he understood often both what she said and what she did not say.