About two o'clock
`` It is hard , '' said Christopher , sadly . `` But have a little patience . Society will come to you long before practice comes to me . '' About two o'clock one afternoon a carriage and pair drove up , and a gorgeous footman delivered a card -- `` Lady Cicely Treherne . '' Of course Mrs. Staines was at home , and only withheld by propriety from bounding into the passage to meet her school-fellow . However , she composed herself in the drawing-room , and presently the door was opened , and a very tall young woman , richly but not gayly dressed , drifted into the room , and stood there a statue of composure . Rosa had risen to fly to her ; but the reverence a girl of eighteen strikes into a child of twelve hung about her still , and she came timidly forward , blushing and sparkling , a curious contrast in color and mind to her visitor ; for Lady Cicely was Languor in person -- her hair whitey-brown , her face a fine oval , but almost colorless ; her eyes a pale gray , her neck and hands incomparably white and beautiful -- a lymphatic young lady , a live antidote to emotion .