"
She heard Minnie's "Very well, Miss Percival," as she disappeared, smiling
still, and with a slight heightening of colour. When her colour rose, it
rose evenly, flooding her face and neck with the dawn-hue. There were no
patches or streaks of flame; she showed, as it were, incandescent.
She crossed the hall in the deepening dusk, a fine, littered room, where a
great log-fire revealed the tall portraits of ladies and gentleman of long
ago--sportsmen with spaniels at their feet, general officers in scarlet,
pointing through smoke the direction of the enemy, a judge in ermine and
full bottomed wig, a lady in white satin leaning against a broken column
in a park, and backed by a brewing thunderstorm; and as she went her way
gave a couple of glances to right and left, picked up a _Bradshaw_ from a
side-table, stooped to put a tiger-skin straight. She continued down a
long corridor, swinging her hat, and entered an open doorway at the
extreme end. By the way she tossed the hat on to a chair and stirred the
crackling logs with the point of her shoe, it was to be supposed that she
was in her demesne. Standing with a foot on the fender she presently fell
into a reverie, and presently reopened and re-read her telegram.
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