Unclosing one of the leaves, the old woman admitted
enough daylight to guide Aurelia to a couch against the wall, saying,
"You can wait there till I see to your bed. And you'll be wanting
supper too!" she added in a tone of infinite disgust.
"O never mind supper, if I can only go to bed," sighed Aurelia, sinking
on the couch as the old woman hobbled off. Lassitude and exhaustion
had brought her to a state like annihilation--unable to think or guess,
hope or fear, with shoes hurting her footsore feet, a stiff dress
cramping her too much for sleep, and her weary aching eyes gathering
a few impressions in a passive way. On the walls hung dimly seen
portraits strangely familiar to her. The man in a green dressing gown
with floating hair had a face she knew; so had the lady in the yellow
ruff. And was that not the old crest, the Delavie butterfly, with the
motto, _Ma Vie et ma Mie_, carved on the mantelpiece? Thus she knew
that she must be in Delavie House, and felt somewhat less desolate as
she recognised several portraits as duplicates of those at the Great
House at Carminster, and thought they looked at her in pity with
their eyes like her father's. The youngest son in the great family
group was, as she knew, an Amyas, and he put her in mind of her own.
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