'Miss Hale looks well, ma'am,--doesn't she? Mrs. Shaw's coral

couldn't have come in better. It just gives the right touch of

colour, ma'am. Otherwise, Miss Margaret, you would have been too

pale.' Margaret's black hair was too thick to be plaited; it needed

rather to be twisted round and round, and have its fine silkiness

compressed into massive coils, that encircled her head like a

crown, and then were gathered into a large spiral knot behind.

She kept its weight together by two large coral pins, like small

arrows for length. Her white silk sleeves were looped up with

strings of the same material, and on her neck, just below the

base of her curved and milk-white throat, there lay heavy coral

beads.

'Oh, Margaret! how I should like to be going with you to one of

the old Barrington assemblies,--taking you as Lady Beresford used

to take me.' Margaret kissed her mother for this little burst of

maternal vanity; but she could hardly smile at it, she felt so

much out of spirits.

'I would rather stay at home with you,--much rather, mamma.' 'Nonsense, darling! Be sure you notice the dinner well. I shall

like to hear how they manage these things in Milton. Particularly

the second course, dear. Look what they have instead of game.' Mrs. Hale would have been more than interested,--she would have

been astonished, if she had seen the sumptuousness of the

dinner-table and its appointments. Margaret, with her London

cultivated taste, felt the number of delicacies to be oppressive

one half of the quantity would have been enough, and the effect

lighter and more elegant. But it was one of Mrs. Thornton's

rigorous laws of hospitality, that of each separate dainty enough

should be provided for all the guests to partake, if they felt

inclined. Careless to abstemiousness in her daily habits, it was

part of her pride to set a feast before such of her guests as

cared for it. Her son shared this feeling. He had never

known--though he might have imagined, and had the capability to

relish--any kind of society but that which depended on an

exchange of superb meals and even now, though he was denying

himself the personal expenditure of an unnecessary sixpence, and

had more than once regretted that the invitations for this dinner

had been sent out, still, as it was to be, he was glad to see the

old magnificence of preparation. Margaret and her father were the

first to arrive. Mr. Hale was anxiously punctual to the time

specified. There was no one up-stairs in the drawing-room but

Mrs. Thornton and Fanny. Every cover was taken off, and the

apartment blazed forth in yellow silk damask and a

brilliantly-flowered carpet. Every corner seemed filled up with

ornament, until it became a weariness to the eye, and presented a

strange contrast to the bald ugliness of the look-out into the

great mill-yard, where wide folding gates were thrown open for

the admission of carriages. The mill loomed high on the left-hand

side of the windows, casting a shadow down from its many stories,

which darkened the summer evening before its time.




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