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Did the sentimentalists, at first so horrified at her action, really suppose that the service which in the end they were compelled to admire could ever have been accomplished by a soft and maudlin being such as their imagination created, all brimming eyes and heartfelt sighs, angelic draperies and white-winged shadows that hairy soldiers turned to kiss?

There was something in the generous amplitude and robust cheerfulness of this great artist that accorded well with the ideal of the occasion; she was in herself a great musical festival; and one felt, as she floated down the stage with her far-spreading white draperies, and swept the audience a colossal courtesy, that here was the embodied genius of the Jubilee.

So, if the veiled lady stepped through the Courts of Trinity, she now drowsed once more, all her draperies about her, her head against a pillar. "Somehow it seems to matter." The low voice was Simeon's. The voice was even lower that answered him. The sharp tap of a pipe on the mantelpiece cancelled the words. And perhaps Jacob only said "hum," or said nothing at all.

There was a rush for the door, a swish of draperies, a little sob from Lois, who was terrified. Saton remained standing alone. He had not moved. His eyes were fixed upon the figure of the judge, who also lingered. They two were left in the centre of the hall. "Come, Guerdon," Rochester cried. "You and I will take the lot on." Guerdon did not move. He motioned to Saton slightly.

Suddenly a light sound as of the movement of silken draperies fell upon his ear, and at the same instant a low voice spoke. He swung about, to see a figure before him at sight of which, alone as he had been with it for months, he felt his unsubdued heart leap in his breast. By her face he knew she had followed him for a purpose. He let her speak.

"The chief vice I have encountered here," returned Ringfield firmly, "is drink, and as a result other things connected with it, ensuing naturally." Miss Clairville sat down suddenly, and as she did so her draperies whorled about her till she looked like some crimson flower with her dark head for its centre. "Oh!" she said under her breath, "surely there are worse things than drink!"

These draperies were suspended over the centre of the bed from a massive gilded ornament, shaped to represent a huge arrow, and the countess in her agitation gathered the folds around her, and hung upon them in her efforts to sit up. "Oh, no, aunt, I have not forsaken you," returned Bertha. "I will go with you; but what shall we do alone? M. de Bois refuses to go unless Maurice and Madeleine go."

At the end of each suite, one, of fabulous size, without frame, made to appear, by a cunning arrangement of dark draperies, like a transparent portion of the wall itself, extended the magnificence of the apartments. Not a flame nor a jet was anywhere visible.

At last the door, loosed, was blown wide open, flinging Miss Wilson and Agatha back, and admitting a whirlwind that tore round the hall, snatched at the women's draperies, and blew out the lights. Agatha, by a hash of lightning, saw for an instant two men straining at the door like sailors at a capstan. Then she knew by the cessation of the whirlwind that they had shut it.

The round-limbed beauty at his side crushed her gauzy draperies against him, as they trod the figure of the dance together, but it was no more to him than if an old nurse had laid her hand on his sleeve. The young girl chafed at his seeming neglect, and her imperious blood mounted into her cheeks; but he appeared unconscious of it.