Page:Eliot - Felix Holt, the Radical, vol. III, 1866.djvu/94



days after Esther's arrival at Transome Court, Denner, coming to dress Mrs Transome before dinner—a labour of love for which she had ample leisure now—found her mistress seated with more than ever of that marble aspect of self-absorbed suffering, which to the waiting-woman's keen observation had been gradually intensifying itself during the past week. She had tapped at the door without having been summoned, and she had ventured to enter though she had heard no voice saying "Come in."

Mrs Transome had on a dark warm dressing-gown, hanging in thick folds about her, and she