sake of the little quiver of
respectful admiration she knew they would give her; but
she did not dare to do that. Her eyes went from the
bookcase to the photogravure of Dore's "Entry into
Jerusalem," under which three Japanese dolls were arranged
with charming effect. "The Reading Magdalen" caught them
next, a colored photograph, and then a Magdalen of more
obscure origin in much blackened oils and a very deep
frame; then still another Magdalen, more modern, in
monochrome. In fact, the room was full of Magdalens, and
on an easel in the corner stood a Mater Dolorosa, lifting
up her streaming eyes. Granting the capacity to take them
seriously, they might have depressed some people, but
they elevated Miss Kimpsey.
She was equally elevated by the imitation willow pattern
plates over the door, and the painted yellow daffodils
on the panels, and the orange-colored _Revue des Deux
Mondes_ on the corner of the table, and the absence of
all bows or draperies from the furniture. Miss Kimpsey's
own parlor was excrescent with bows and draperies. "She
is above them," thought Miss Kimpsey, with a little pang.
The room was so dark that she could not see how old the
_Revue_ was; she did not know either that it was always
there, that unexceptionable Parisian periodical, with
Dante in the original and red leather, _Academy Notes_,
and the _Nineteenth Century_, all helping to furnish Mrs.
Leslie Bell's drawing-room in a manner in accordance with
her tastes; but if she had, Miss Kimpsey would have been
equally impressed. It took intellect even to select these
things. The other books, Miss Kimpsey noticed by the
numbers labelled on their backs, were mostly from the
circulating library--"David Grieve," "Cometh up as a
Flower," "The Earthly Paradise," Ruskin's "Stones of
Venice," Marie Corelli's "Romance of Two Worlds." The
mantelpiece was arranged in geometrical disorder, but it
had a gilt clock under a glass shade precisely in the
middle. When the gilt clock indicated, in a mincing way,
that Miss Kimpsey had been kept waiting fifteen minutes,
Mrs. Bell came in. She had fastened her last button and
assumed the expression appropriate to Miss Kimpsey at
the foot of the stair. She was a tall, thin woman, with
no color and rather narrow brown eyes much wrinkled round
about, and a forehead that loomed at you, and grayish
hair twisted high into a knot behind--a knot from which
a wispy end almost invariably escaped. When she smiled
her m
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