“Have you seen the girl?”
Mrs. Jael’s head and shoulders had disappeared into the depths of the carved-oak wardrobe. Her voice came muffled as from a cave.
“Yes, my lady.”
“What was she doing with herself?”
“Sitting at her window, poor dear, and looking very low and sulky.”
Anne Purcell turned her head to and fro as she scrutinized herself critically in the glass. She still looked young, with her high color and her sleek skin, her large eyes and full red mouth. Her style of comeliness seemed suited to the times, plump and pleasurable, full and free in outline and expression. My Lord of Gore had no reason to feel displeased at the prospect of possessing such a widow.
“What do you make of the girl, Jael?”
The tire-woman had turned from the wardrobe with the gown of red velvet over her arm.
“The child is strange, my lady, and out of health. You might say that she had been moon-struck, or that she was watching for a ghost.”
Anne Purcell moved restlessly in her chair.