Had you been outside, you might
have seen that the burnished gold on the window-panes had turned to
crimson, for the setting sun had changed its hue: but the panes could
not look more brightly, deeply crimson, than did Mrs. Verner. It seemed
as if you might light a match at her face. In that particular, there was
a contrast between her and the perfectly pale, sallow faces of her sons;
otherwise the resemblance was great.
"Fred," said Mrs. Verner, "I wish you would see what they are at with
the shirts and things. I sent Rachel after them, but she does not come
back, and then I sent Mary Tynn, and she does not come. Here's John as
impatient as he can be."
She spoke in a slow, somewhat indifferent tone, as if she did not care
to put herself out of the way about it. Indeed it was not Mrs. Verner's
custom to put herself out of the way for anything. She liked to eat,
drink, and sleep in undisturbed peace; and she generally did so.
"John's impatient because he wants to get it over," spoke up that
gentleman himself in a merry voice. "Fifty thousand things I have to do,
between now and to-morrow night. If they don't bring the clothes soon,
I shall close the boxes without them, and leave them a legacy for Fred."
"You have only yourself to thank, John," said his mother. "You never
gave the things out until after breakfast this morning, and then
required them to be done by the afternoon. Such nonsense, to say they
had grown yellow in the drawers! They'll be yellower by the time you get
there. It is just like you! driving off everything till the last moment.
You have known you were going for some days past."
John was stamping upon a box to get down the lid, and did not attend to
the reproach. "See if it will lock, Fred, will you?" said he.
Frederick Massingbird stooped and essayed to turn the key. And just then
Mrs. Tynn entered with a tray of clean linen, which she set down. Rachel
followed, having a contrivance in her hand, made of silk, for the
holding of needles, threads, and pins, all in one.
She looked positively beautiful as she held it out before Mrs. Verner.
The evening rays fell upon her exquisite face, with its soft, dark eyes
and its changing colour; they fell upon her silk dress, a relic of Mrs.
Verner's--but it had no crimson stripes across it; upon her lace collar,
upon the little edge of lace at her wrists. Nature had certainly
intended Rachel for a lady, with her graceful form, her charming
manners, a
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