Page 39 (1/1)

People give way to very infantine thoughts and actions when they wait; the battle-field of life is temporarily fenced off by a hard and fast line--the interview Cytherea fixed her eyes idly upon the streak, and began picturing a wonderful paradise on the other side as the source of such a beahty world

Whilst she watched the particles of dust floating before the brilliant chink she heard a carriage and horses stop opposite the front of the house Afterwards came the rustle of a lady's skirts down the corridor, and into the rooolden line vanished in parts like the phosphorescent streak caused by the striking of a ht footstep on the floor just behind it: then a pause Then the foot tapped impatiently, and 'There's no one here!' was spoken iue

'No,to fetch her,' said the attendant

'That will do--or you needn't go in; I will call her' Cytherea had risen, and she advanced to the middle door with the chink under it as the servant retired She had just laid her hand on the knob, when it slipped round within her fingers, and the door was pulled open from the other side

2 FOUR O'CLOCK The direct blaze of the afternoon sun, partly refracted through the crihtened by reflections from the crimson-flock paper which covered the walls, and a carpet on the floor of the salow round the for close to Cytherea's front with the door in her hand

The stranger appeared to the looination fresh fro in the ure of a finely-built woular proportions

Cytherea involuntarily shaded her eyes with her hand, retreated a step or two, and then she could for the first time see Miss Aldclyffe's face in addition to her outline, lit up by the secondary and softer light that was reflected fro woman, but could boast of much beauty of the majestic autumnal phase

'O,' said the lady, 'come this way' Cytherea followed her to the embrasure of the

Both the woe as they walked forward in the orange light; and each showed too in her face that she had been struck with her companion's appearance The warm tint added to Cytherea's face a voluptuousness which youth and a simple life had not yet allowed to express itself there ordinarily; whilst in the elder lady's face it reduced the custoht have been called sternness, if not harshness, to grandeur, and war complexion with much of the youthful richness it plainly had once possessed