THE DAY AFTER THE WEDDING
Mrs. Anglesea was up with the sun the next morning. She replenished the smoldering fire from wood that she found in a box at the bottom of the closet. Then she threw open the front and side windows of her corner room, and looked out on the bright, crisp, winter morning.
The ground and the bare trees were glistening with white frost, and beyond and below stretched the blue waters of the bay, intensely blue now under the clear, winter sky.
“It’s a pretty place, but, whewew! how cold!” she said, with a shudder, as she pulled down the sash of the last window and turned to the fire.
She could hardly persuade herself to leave it, but, fearing she might be late for breakfast, she at length arose, and made her toilet, hastily and carelessly, with a few splashes of water on her face and neck and a hasty drying, interrupted in the middle to press the lavender-scented white damask to her face to inhale its fragrance. Then she ran a comb through the thick locks of her curly hair, which she finally bunched up into a big mass at the back of her head. At last she put on her clothes, and left her room, noisily banging the door in closing it.
There was no one in the upper hall. All the chamber doors leading from it were shut.
“I reckon they are all at breakfast, and the coffee will be stark cold when I get there. I wish they had waked me up, but I reckon they thought I was tired. I am never too tired to eat,” she muttered to herself as she went downstairs.
She hurried directly to the dining room, where she found a fine, open fire burning, and Luce engaged in setting the table.
“Why, Lord!” said the visitor. “Ain’t you had breakfast yet? I thought as I should be ever so late!”
“Dear me, ma’am! Is it you? W’y didn’t you ring?” inquired, in turn, the surprised negro woman.