But I was damning him most heartily for the prank he played me.
I sat in the parlour talking to Mrs.Lockwood.The babies were long since in bed; the elder children now came to make their reverences to their mother and father, and so very dutifully to every guest.

A fat black woman in turban and gold ear-hoops fetched them away; and the house seemed to lose a trifle of its brightness with the children's going.
Major Lockwood sat writing letters on a card-table, a cluster of tall candles at his elbow; Mr.Hunt was reading; his wife and Boyd still lingered on the stairs, and their light, quick laughter sounded prettily at moments.
Mrs.Lockwood, I remember, had been sewing while she and I conversed together.

The French alliance was our topic; and she was still speaking of the pleasure it had given all when Lewis Morris brought to her house young Lafayette.

Then, of a sudden, she turned her head sharply, as though listening.
Through the roar of the storm I thought I heard the gallop of a horse.
Major Lockwood lifted his eyes from his letters, fixing them on the rain-washed window.
Certainly a horseman had now pulled up at our very porch; Mr.Hunt laid aside his book very deliberately and walked to the parlour door, and a moment later the noise of the metal knocker outside rang loudly through the house.
We were now all rising and moving out into the hall, as though a common instinct of coming trouble impelled us.

The black servant opened; a drenched messenger stood there, blinking in the candle light.
Major Lockwood went to him instantly, and drew him in the door; and they spoke together in low and rapid tones.
Mrs.Lockwood murmured in my ear: "It's one of Luther's men.