Page:Arthur Stringer--The House of Intrigue.djvu/146

134 But I couldn't for the life of me keep from smiling at that motley array. First came Enoch Bartlett, with his shoulders hunched up and his wizened old face as alert and furtive and veiled as the weasel's. Then came Aunt Agatha Widdemer. She wore black, and was crying openly and audibly. She started for the bed, but the watchful Miss Ledwidge came between her and the hangings and steered her gently on toward where old Enoch Bartlett was making hypocritical dabs at his eyes with a huge linen handkerchief. Yet profuse as was Aunt Agatha's grief, I noticed that she suspended her tears long enough to sniff audibly and then ostentatiously withdraw her presence from the neighborhood of old Enoch. Practically all of the newcomers, in fact, betrayed an active spirit of hostility toward that solemn and solitary figure, who stood quite alone at the far side of the room, as black and sober as a crow, while the others gathered together protectively, like prairie-cattle before a storm, in the opposite corner of the shadowy room.

That group was made bigger by the advent of two gawky young girls with frightened eyes. Then came a dandified young man in yellow shoes and yellow gloves, and a prim-faced old maid with a mouth that looked as though it had been sucking lemon-drops.