As Kate entered the room, she could not help feeling struck by the alteration that had taken place in her Ladyship's appearance, who, as she lay back in a deep chair, with closed eyes and folded hands, looked like one risen from a long sick-bed.
As she started and opened her eyes, however, at Kate's approach, the features assumed much of their wonted expression, and their haughty character was only tinged, but not subdued, by the look of sorrow they wore. With the low and pleasant voice which Kate possessed in perfection, she had begun to utter some words of pleasure at seeing her Ladyship again, when the other interrupted her hastily, saying,—
“I want you to read to me, child. There, take that volume of Madame de Sevigne, and begin where you see the mark. You appear weak to-day,—tired, perhaps?”
“Oh, a mere passing sense of fatigue, my Lady,” said Kate, assuming her place, and preparing her book.
“Chagrin, annoyance—disgust I would call it—are far more wearing than mere labor. For my own part, I think nothing of exertion. But let us not speak of it. Begin.”
And Kate now commenced one of those charming letters, wherein the thought is so embellished by the grace of expression that there is a perpetual semblance of originality, without that strain upon the comprehension that real novelty exacts. She read, too, with consummate skill. To all the natural gifts of voice and utterance she added a most perfect taste, and that nicely subdued dramatic feeling which lends to reading its great fascination. Nearly an hour had thus passed, and not a word nor a gesture from Lady Dorothea interrupted the reader. With slightly drooped eyelids, she sat calm and tranquil; and as Kate, at moments, stole a passing glance towards her, she could not guess whether she was listening to her or not.
“You'd have succeeded on the stage, Miss Henderson,” said she at length, raising her eyes slowly. “Did it never occur to you to think of that career?”
“Once I had some notion of it, my Lady,” said Kate quietly. “I played in a little private theatre of the Duchess's, and they thought that I had some dramatic ability.”
“People of condition have turned actors, latterly,—men, of course, I mean; for women, the ordeal is too severe,—the coarse familiarity of a very coarse class, the close association with most inferior natures—By the way, what a week of it we have had! I 'd not have believed any one who told me that the whole globe contained as much unredeemed vulgarity as this little neighborhood. What was the name of the odious little woman that always lifted the skirt of her dress before sitting down?”
“Mrs. Creevy, my Lady.”