Page:Herbert Jenkins - Patricia Brent Spinster.djvu/273

 remembering that, in spite of his terror, he had voluntarily gone up to the top of the house to call her, she felt something strangely uncomfortable at the back of her throat.

"Come along, Gustave!" she cried brightly. "Let us help get the tea. I'm so thirsty."

From that moment Gustave appeared to take himself in hand, and save for a violent start, at the more vigorous reports, seemed to have overcome his terror.

As Patricia proceeded to assist Mrs. Craske-Morton, a veritable heroine in a pink flannel wrapper, she took stock of her fellows. Miss Wangle was engaged in prayer and tears, her wig was awry, her face drawn and yellow and her clothes the garb of advanced maidenhood. On her feet were bed-socks, half thrust into felt slippers. From beneath a black quilted dressing-gown peeped with virtuous pride the longcloth of a nightdress of Victorian severity.

Mrs. Mosscrop-Smythe was in curl-papers and a faded blue kimono that allowed no suggestion to escape of the form beneath. Miss Sikkum had seized a grey raincoat, above which a forest of curl papers looked strangely out of place. Her fingers moved restlessly. The two top buttons of the raincoat were missing, displaying a wealth of blue ribbon and openwork that none had suspected in her. The lateness at which the ribbon and openwork began gave an interesting demonstration in feminine bone structure.