Explore "Lavinia" by Rhoda Broughton on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The hall-door reveals an unwelcome sight, though no one can deny that it is a showy one, nor that the February sunlight is snobbish enough to treble itself against the brazen glories of the crests on blinker and harness and panel of the Princes' carriage. It is a fact of disagreeable familiarity to both uncle and niece that Féodorovna Prince will never allow any of her acquaintance to be "not at home; " and that to be pursued to study, toilet-table, and bed is the penalty exacted from those upon whom she chooses to inflict her friendship. The two exchange a look.
"Do not let her come near me," says the man, in accents of peremptory disgust, and so flings off to his den; while Lavinia, with the matter-of-fact unselfishness of the well-broken human female, goes smiling into the drawing-room.