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Laurence, still in a dressing-gown, would lounge into Sophia's room, dirty, haggard, but polite with a curious stiff ceremony, and would drink her coffee there. This wandering in peignoirs would continue till three o'clock, and then Laurence might say, as if nerving herself to an unusual and immense effort: "I must be dressed by five o'clock. I have not a moment."
There was a little backwardness at first, and then Ellen was jumping away with the rest, and thinking it perfectly delightful, as Miss Sophia's piano rattled out merry jigs and tunes, and little feet flew over the floor as light as the hearts they belonged to. At eight o'clock the young ones were dismissed, and bade good-night to their elders; and, pleased with the kind kiss Mrs.
While this was doing, Margaret Dunscombe put her head in at the door to ask Anne, Miss Sophia's maid, if she was almost ready to come and curl her hair. "Indeed I can't say that I am, Miss Margaret," said Anne. "I've something to do for Miss Humphreys, and Miss Sophia hasn't so much as done the first thing towards beginning to get ready yet. It'll be a good hour, and more."
She had early perceived that his father and sisters looked on him as the naughty one of the family, but when she saw Lucy's fretting interference, and, Sophia's wrangling contempt, she did not wonder that an unjust degree of blame had often fallen to his share; and under her management, he scarcely ever gave cause for complaint.
"My dear Ellen," said Alice, "it was no such terrible matter as Sophia's words have made you believe. It was a clear case of obstinacy.
The discussion went on endlessly, long after Henrietta herself had tired of it. It was lengthened by the insertion of anecdotes of Caroline's and Sophia's youth, and hardly a colour or a material was mentioned which did not recall an incident which Henrietta found more interesting than her own sartorial affairs. Rose had disappeared, and the dressing-bell was rung before the subject languished.
The doctor was nonplussed. Constance gave him a second-hand account of Sophia's original attack in Paris, roughly as she had heard it from Sophia. He at once said that it could not have been what the French doctor had said it was. Constance shrugged her shoulders. She was not surprised. For her there was necessarily something of the charlatan about a French doctor.
She ought to have talked in this strain. But she could not. That energetic woman had not sufficient energy left. She wanted rest, rest even though it were a coward's rest, an ostrich's tranquillity after the turmoil of apprehensions caused by Sophia. Her soul cried out for peace. She was not, however, to have peace. On the very first Sunday after Sophia's departure, Mr.
'H'm, he'll do what his wife tells him, I imagine. No girl will appreciate Mrs. Sales's washy paintings. 'Rose would, Sophia sighed. 'Yes, I do, Rose said cheerfully. She was too cheerful for Sophia's romantic little theory, but an acuter audience would have found her too cheerful for herself. She had overdone it by half a tone, but the exaggeration was too fine for any ears but her own.
It was all very well; but the force capable of producing such effects still remained, something marvellous and mysterious. 'Say what you will, I thought, 'I've seen, seen with my own eyes, my dead tutor! The next day the ball in the Hall of Nobility took place. Sophia's father called on me and reminded me of the engagement I had made with his daughter.
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