“Thankye, Jem, thankye,” he said earnestly. “Now for lunch. I’m as hungry as a hunter, and my mind’s at rest.”
“Humph!”
Volume One—Chapter Six.
Dust in the Observatory.
“Well, Mr Oldroyd, and what do you think? Pray, tell me frankly. You have found out what is the matter with him?”
“Yes, ma’am, I think I have.”
“Then, pray, speak.”
Mrs Alleyne leaned forward with every curve in her face as well as her eyes contradicting the form of her words. “Pray speak,” sounded and looked like a command to speak at once under pain of the lady’s displeasure. She was a woman of over fifty, with white hair and high clear forehead; but what would have been a handsome face was detracted from by a pinched, care-worn expression, as if there was some great trouble upon her mind; and this trouble had soured her disposition, and made her imperious and harsh. Her cold and rather repellent manner was not softened by her formal white cap or her dress, which was a stiff, black silk, that in its old age appeared to have doubts as to whether it ought not to be a brown, save where it was relieved by white cuffs and a plain muslin kerchief, such as is seen in old pictures, loosely crossed over the breast, and secured behind.