However, there was little time--the door-bell rang
at a quarter to twelve, and Mrs. Wolfe was in the drawing-room.
'I told you so,' whispered Lucy, exultingly.
'This is unbearable,' cried Albinia. 'I shall give notice that I am
always engaged in the morning.'
She desired each young lady to work a sum in her absence, and left
them to murmur, if they were so disposed. Perhaps it was Lucy's
speech that made her inflict the employment; at any rate, her spirit
was not as serene as she could have desired.
Mr. Kendal was quite willing that she should henceforth shut her door
against company in the morning; that is to say, he bowed his head
assentingly. She was begging him to take a walk with her, when, at
another sound of the bell, he made a precipitate retreat into his
study. The visitors were the Belmarche family. The old lady was
dark and withered, small, yet in look and air, with a certain
nobility and grandeur that carried Albinia back in a moment to the
days of hoops and trains, of powder and high-heeled shoes, and made
her feel that the sweeping courtesy had come straight from the days
of Marie Antoinette, and that it was an honour and distinction
conferred by a superior--superior, indeed, in all the dignity of age,
suffering, and constancy.
Albinia blushed, and took her hand with respect very unlike the
patronizing airs of Bayford Bridge towards 'poor old Madame
Belmarche,' and with downcast eyes, and pretty embarrassment, heard
the stately compliments of the ancien regime.
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