Gratian dressed fashionably, and one of her perfections was a tall and well-proportioned figure. We might not, now-a-days, think it was set off by her short and full-flounced muslin gown, made with a short waist, the body cut low, while over it she wore an enormous pelerine of muslin, edged with lace, which was crossed ever her breast and fastened with a curious antique brooch.
Even Gratian's tall figure could scarcely bear gracefully the width which fashion had decreed; and all was surmounted by a hat with a sugar-loaf crown, and a deep brim caught up on the left side by a large red rosette.
As she drew on her long, loose gloves, she surveyed her cousin with an appraising, searching glance. Her eyes were at all times too keen, and her wide mouth displayed a row of white teeth more fully than was quite agreeable.
"Ah!" she said, tapping Gilbert's shoulder; "ah! he is in love. I have no doubt of it! Adieu; au revoir, cher cousin!"
"The same as ever!" Gilbert said. "Thank you, dear mother," he said, rising with his accustomed courtesy to take the glass of wine from her hand. "Thanks. I confess I am rather knocked up; and if I had known Sion Hill was so far from the Bristol coach office I should have come up in a hackney, I think, instead of sending my luggage by the carrier. But how beautiful this is!" he said, stepping on the balcony and looking out upon the scene before him.
No piers had yet been raised for the great design of the Suspension Bridge—that vast dream of Brunel's, which for so many years seemed fated to remain only a dream; while the naked buttresses, in all their huge proportions, stood like giants on either side of the gorge, connected only by a rod of iron, over which a few people with strong nerves were allowed to pass in a sliding basket.
Gilbert looked out on a scene which can hardly be equalled for the unusual beauty of its salient points.
"We shall be happy to live here, mother," Gilbert said.
"You have no misgivings, my dear son."
"No, it is clear I must make my living in some practical way, and why not by the law?"