Ravenshoe. By Henry Kingsley.

294 RAVENSHOE.
I am so sorry. Is he coming here? And how soon will he
come, dear? Do be calm. Think what we may do for him. He
should be here now. Stay, I will write a note, — just one line.
WVhere is my blotting-book? Alwright, get my blotting-book.
And stay; say that, if any one calls fobr Miss Corby, he is to be
shown into the drawing-room at once. Let us go there, Mary."
Alwright had meanwhile, not having heard the last sentence,
departed to the drawing-room, and possessed herself of Lady
Hainault's portfolio, meaning to carry it up to the dressingroom; then she had remembered the message about any one
calling being shown up to the drawing-room, and had gandered
down to the hall to give it to the porter; after which she gandered up-stairs to the dressing-room again, thinking that Lady Hainault was there, and missing both her and Mary from having
gone down-stairs. So, while she and Mary were looking for the
blotting-book impatiently in the drawing-room, the door was
opened, and the servant announced, "A gentleman to see Miss
Corby."
lie had discreetly said a gentleman, for he did not like to say
an Hussar. Mary turned round and saw a man all scarlet and
gold before her, and was frightened, and did not know him. But
when he said, "Mary," in the old, old voice, there came such a
rush of bygone times, bygone words, scenes, sounds, meetings
and partings, sorrows and joys, into her wild, warm, little heart,
that, with a low, loving, tender cry, she ran to him and hid her
face on his bosom.*
And Lady Hainault swept out of the room after that unlucky
blotting-book. And I intend to go after her, out of mere politeness, to help her to find it. I will not submit to be lectured for
making an aposiopesis. If any think they could do this business
better than I, let them communicate with the publishers, and
finish the story for themselves. I decline to go into that drawingroom at present. I shall wander up-stairs into my lady's chamber, after that goosey-gander Alwright, and see what she has
done with the blotting-book.
Lady Hainault found the idiot of a woman in her dressingroom, looking at herself in the glass, with the blotting-book under
her arm. The maid looked as foolish as people generally do who
are caught looking at themselves in the glass. (How disconcerting it is to be found standing on a chair before the chimney-glass,
just to have a look at your entire figure before going to a
* As a matter of curiosity, I tried to write this paragraph from the word
"Mary," to the word " bosom," without using a single word derived from the
Latin. After having taken all possible pains to do so, I found there were eight
out of forty-eight. I think it is hardly possible to reduce the proportion lower,
and I think it is undesirable to reduce it so low.