Page:A strange, sad comedy (IA strangesadcomedy00seawiala).pdf/135

Rh whiteness of her throat and lights and shadows in her hazel eyes. Letty was very silent—for, being a creature of caprice, when she was not laughing and talking like a running brook, she maintained a mysterious silence. One slender foot in a black slipper showed from under the edge of her gown—the only sign of coquetry about her—for no matter how much Puritanism in air and manner Letty might affect, there was always one small circumstance—whether it was her foot, her hand, or her hair, or the turn of her head,—in which the natural and incorrigible flirt was revealed. The evening passed quickly and pleasantly to all. The Colonel would not hear of a week being the limit of their visit. Within a few days the Romaine party would be at Shrewsbury, and then there would be a "reunion," as the Colonel expressed it.

When Farebrother was consigned to his bed-room that night, with a huge four-poster like a catafalque to sleep in, and a dressing-table with a frilled dimity petticoat around it, and the inevitable wood-fire roaring up the chimney, he abandoned himself to pleasing reflections, as he smoked his last cigar. How pleasant, home-like, and comfortable was