United States or New Zealand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Silent as a torture-maiden, and as grim, Folter approached to try the filmy thing, scornfully confident that the first sight of it on would prove it unwearable.
Already she had the sunflowers under her creative hands. "I should be very glad if I can do it well enough to please you, ma'am," answered Mary. "But," she added, "would you kindly see that Mrs. Redmain is told, as soon as she wakes, that I am here?" "Oblige me by ringing the bell," said Mrs. Perkin. "Send Mrs. Folter here."
Perkin, and telling her that I desire her to pay you a month's wages, and let you leave the house to-morrow morning. You won't mind helping me to dress till I get another maid will you, Mary?" she added; and Folter left the room, chagrined at her inability to cause annoyance. "I do not see why you should have another maid so long as I am with you, ma'am," said Mary.
There Folter was in the act of persuading her mistress of the necessity of beginning to dress: Miss Marston, she said, knew nothing of what she had undertaken; and, even if she arrived in time, it would be with something too ridiculous for any lady to appear in when Mary entered, and was received with a cry of delight from Hesper; in proportion to whose increasing disgust for the pink robe, was her pleasure when she caught sight of Mary's colors, as she undid the parcel: when she lifted the dress on her arm for a first effect, she was enraptured with it aerial in texture, of the hue of a smoky rose, deep, and cloudy with overlying folds, yet diaphanous, a darkness dilute with red.
Mary would now take a good gaze at the lovely creature, now abstract herself from the visible, and try to call up the vision of her as the real Hesper, not a Hesper dressed up a process which had in it hope for the lady, but not much for the dress upon the bed. At last Folter had done her part. "I suppose you must see it on!" said Hesper, and she rose up.
Perkin, whose reception of Mary she had learned, Folter hastened to report the fact, and succeeded thereby in occasioning no small uneasiness in the bosom of the housekeeper, who was almost as much afraid of her mistress as the other servants were of herself.
About eight o'clock, Folter summoned her to go to Mrs. Redmain. By this time she was tired: she was accustomed to tea in the afternoon, and since her dinner with the housekeeper she had had nothing. She found Mrs. Redmain dressed for the evening. As soon as Mary entered, she dismissed Folter. "I am going out to dinner," she said. "Are you quite comfortable?"
"It makes no more trouble less, miss, than if I had to get it when the room-breakfast was on. I've got to get the things together anyhow; and why shouldn't you have it as well as Mrs. Perkin, or that ill-tempered cockatoo, Mrs. Folter? You're a lady, and that's more'n can be said for either of them justly, that is."
"If you would allow me, ma'am," said Mary, "I should like much to try whether I could not find something that would suit you and your idea too. However well you might look in that, you would owe it no thanks. The worst is, I know nothing of the London shops." "I should think not!" remarked Folter, with emphasis. "I would send you in the brougham, if I thought it was of any use," said Hesper.
After luncheon, therefore, she sent for Miss Marston to her bedroom. Mary found her half dressed, Folter in attendance, a great heap of pink lying on the bed. "Sit down, Mary," said Hesper, pointing to a chair; "I want your advice. But I must first explain. Where I am going this evening, nobody is to be herself except me. I am not to be Mrs. Redmain, though, but Hesper.
Word Of The Day