The violins moaned, but were held firm. The worst
might be precipitated at any moment.

But again there was a transfer of the general attention toward the
upper end of the hall. The door once more opened, and there appeared a
little group of three persons, on whom there was fixed a regard so
steadfast and so silent that it might well have been seen that they
were strangers to all present. Indeed, there was but one sound audible
in the sudden silence which fell as these three entered the room. Sam,
the driver, scraped one foot unwittingly upon the floor as he half
leaned forward and looked eagerly at them as they advanced.

Of the three, one was a tall and slender man, who carried himself with
that ease which, itself unconscious, causes self-consciousness in those
still some generations back of it. Upon the arm of this gentleman was
a lady, also tall, thin, pale, with wide, dark eyes, which now opened
with surprise that was more than half shock. Lastly, with head up and
eyes also wide, like those of a stag which sees some new thing, there
came a young woman, whose presence was such as had never yet been seen
in the hotel at Ellisville. Tall as the older lady by her side, erect,
supple, noble, evidently startled but not afraid, there was that about
this girl which was new to Ellisville, which caused the eye of every
man to fall upon her and the head of every woman to go up a degree the
higher in scorn and disapprobation. This was a being of another world.
There was some visitation here. Mortal woman, woman of the Plains,
never yet grew like this. Nor had gowns like these--soft, clinging,
defining, draping--ever occurred in history. There was some mistake.
This creature had fallen here by error, while floating in search of
some other world.

Astonished, as they might have been by the spectacle before them of the
two rows of separated sex, all of whom gazed steadfastly in their
direction; greeted by no welcoming hand, ushered to no convenient seat,
these three faced the long, half-lit room in the full sense of what
might have been called an awkward situation. Yet they did not shuffle
or cough, or talk one with another, or smile in anguish, as had others
who thus faced the same ordeal. Perhaps the older lady pressed the
closer to the gentleman's side, while the younger placed her hand upon
his shoulder; yet the three walked slowly, calmly, deliberately down
into what must have been one of the most singular sce