Page:Watch and Ward (Boston, Houghton, Osgood and Company, 1878).djvu/217

214 had gone to hear Hubert preach, he had left her, after the sermon, to conduct to their carriage. The younger one was decidedly pretty, in spite of a nose a trifle too aquiline. A pair of imperious dark eyes, as bright as the diamond which glittered in each of her ears, and a nervous, capricious rapidity of motion and gesture, gave her an air of girlish brusquerie, which was by no means without charm. Her mother's aspect, however, testified to its being as well to enjoy this charm at a distance. She was a stout, coarse-featured, good-natured woman, with a jaded, submissive expression, and seemed to proclaim by a certain ponderous docility, as she followed in her daughter's wake, the subserviency of matter to mind. Both ladies were dressed to the uttermost limit of opportunity. They came into the room staring frankly at Nora, and overlooking Hubert, with a gracious implication of his being already one of the family. The situation was a trying one, but he faced it as he might.

"This is Miss Lambert," he said gravely; and then with an effort to dissipate embarrassment by a jest, waving his hand toward his portrait, "This is the Reverend Hubert Lawrence!"

The elder lady moved toward the picture, but the other came straight to Nora. "I have seen you before!" she cried defiantly, and with defiance in her pretty eyes. "And I have heard of you too! Yes, you are certainly very handsome. But pray, what are you doing here?"

"My dear child!" said Hubert, imploringly, and with a burning side-glance at Nora. The world seemed to him certainly very cruel.

"My dear Hubert," said the young lady, "what is she