MISS TARRANT'S TEMPERAMENT
I
She had arrived.
Fanny Brocklebank, as she passed the library, had thought it worth while to look in upon Straker with the news.
Straker could not help suspecting his hostess of an iniquitous desire to see how he would take it. Or perhaps she may have meant, in her exquisite benevolence, to prepare him. Balanced on the arm of the opposite chair, the humor of her candid eyes chastened by what he took to be a remorseful pity, she had the air of preparing him for something.
Yes. She had arrived. She was upstairs, over his very head—resting.