The ladies were in keeping with their dress, thin, stiff and angular,
with worn and lined faces, highly rouged, and enormous long-handled
fans, and Aurelia was almost as much astonished as the child.
There was a low curtseying again, and much ceremony before it was
possible to get out of the pew, and the two ladies mounted at the
door on lofty pattens which added considerably to their height, and,
attended by a loutish-looking man in livery, who carried their books,
stalked of into the village.
Aurelia found from the communicative Molly that they were Mistress
Phoebe and Mistress Delia Treforth, kinswomen of the Belamour family,
who had in consequence a life residence rent-free in a tall thin red
square house near the churchyard, where a very gay parrot was always
to be seen in the windows. They no doubt regarded Miss Delavie and
the little Waylands as interlopers at Bowstead, and their withering
glances made Church-going a trying affair--indeed the first time
that Aurelia took little Amoret, they actually drove the sensitive
child into a sobbing fit, so that she had to be carried out, begging
to know why those ladies looked so cross at her.
The life, on the whole, was not unhappy, except for fits of homesickness
and longing for letters. The arrival of the boxes from the carrier was
the first comfort, and then at last came a thick letter from home,
franked by Sir George Herries, and containing letters from everybody--
even a few roundhand lines from Eugene.
Pages:
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117