“Is that lady a widow? I should not have guessed it,” was the remark. Certainly she was out of mourning.
I have the pleasure to remark that the lady appears quite to have recovered the shock of her bereavement of two years ago, and that her two voyages across the Atlantic with her sojourn there, seem, judging from her rosy visage, quite to have restored her spirits and established her health.
With every desire to be as complimentary as possible, and to paint female charms with the liveliest colours, I cannot borrow the imaginative language of a pretended interviewer of New York, who has soared into the realms of fiction to find Mrs. Dyson’s version of her husband’s murder, and to discover the grounds surrounding his mansion, and the servants who were brought to the spot by the screams of their horrified mistress.
The Bannercross cottage is capable of development when seen through a New York telescope. The American interviewer enlists the sympathies and stirs up the credulity of his readers at the outset, by saying Mrs. Dyson is “a young and extremely handsome lady.”
One does not want gratuitously to take the edge off so very pleasant a compliment. But if the said interviewer had seen, instead of imagining, Mrs. Dyson, I fancy he would have given us a guess at her weight in pounds—for that is a common ingredient in an American description—and if he had been a good judge, he would have put the figure pretty high.
However, I may satisfy your readers by saying Mrs. Dyson is buxom and blooming; and when Mr. Dyson’s heart was pierced by her youthful charms he no doubt showed himself a good judge of female beauty.
It was remarked last week that when she was examined for the prosecution, she wore a veil, and Peace remarking that she kissed the book without raising her veil, insisted that she should take the oath “without a veil between” her lips and the calfskin binding.
To-day she had provided against such an objection, and had discarded the veil, her headgear being a hat with a feather, jauntily set on.
As I am not a milliner, and only saw her sitting, I cannot tell you anything about the rest of her dress, but that her general appearance was stylish and cheerful, and it did not appear that the prospect of being put through the small sieve by Mr. W. E. Clegg had alarmed her—certainly it had not blanched her cheeks.
Well, but while I have been noting Mrs. Dyson and the less notable persons, the magistrates and advocates have concluded their consultation out of court. They resume their places, and then Mr. Welby makes the brief announcement that ends all questions for the day.