It was that of Lady Margaret Mortimer; she did not
herself like the _Margaret_, and signed only her second name
_Alice_ at full length, whence her _friends_ generally
called her to each other Lady Malice. She did not leave the
carriage, but continued to recline motionless in it, at an angle
of forty-five degrees, wrapped in furs, for the day was cloudy
and cold, her pale handsome face looking inexpressibly more
indifferent in its regard of earth and sky and the goings of men,
than that of a corpse whose gaze is only on the inside of the
coffin-lid. But the two ladies who were with her got down. One of
them was her daughter, Hesper by name, who, from the dull, cloudy
atmosphere that filled the doorway, entered the shop like a gleam
of sunshine, dusky-golden, followed by a glowing shadow, in the
person of her cousin, Miss Yolland.
Turnbull hurried to meet them, bowing profoundly, and looking
very much like Issachar between the chairs he carried. But they
turned aside to where Mary stood, and in a few minutes the
counter was covered with various stuffs for some of the smaller
articles of ladies' attire.
The customers were hard to please, for they wanted the best
things at the price of inferior ones, and Mary noted that the
desires of the cousin were farther reaching and more expensive
than those of Miss Mortimer. But, though in this way hard to
please, they were not therefore unpleasant to deal with; and from
the moment she looked the latter in the face, whom she had not
seen since she was a girl, Mary could hardly take her eyes off
her.
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