If my tea stands too long--"
He hesitated, on his side, and left the sentence unfinished. If he had
not been engaged in discussing a subject of such paramount interest to
himself as his breakfast, Mrs. Goldstraw might have fancied that his
attention was beginning to wander at the very outset of the interview.
"If your tea stands too long, sir--?" said the housekeeper, politely
taking up her master's lost thread.
"If my tea stands too long," repeated the wine-merchant mechanically, his
mind getting farther and farther away from his breakfast, and his eyes
fixing themselves more and more inquiringly on his housekeeper's face.
"If my tea--Dear, dear me, Mrs. Goldstraw! what _is_ the manner and tone
of voice that you remind me of? It strikes me even more strongly to-day,
than it did when I saw you yesterday. What can it be?"
"What can it be?" repeated Mrs. Goldstraw.
She said the words, evidently thinking while she spoke them of something
else. The wine-merchant, still looking at her inquiringly, observed that
her eyes wandered towards the chimney-piece once more. They fixed on the
portrait of his mother, which hung there, and looked at it with that
slight contraction of the brow which accompanies a scarcely conscious
effort of memory. Mr. Wilding remarked.
"My late dear mother, when she was five-and-twenty."
Mrs. Goldstraw thanked him with a movement of the head for being at the
pains to explain the picture, and said, with a cleared brow, that it was
the portrait of a very beautiful lady.
Pages:
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38