Both of these servants were dressed in dull brown livery that had seen considerable service.
The ladies entered the drawing-room in full character; that is to say, with Elizabethan stateliness on the part of the dowager, and an easy grace and dignity on the part of the young lady that had a nameless something about it that suggested conscious superiority.

The dresses of both ladies were exceedingly rich, as to material, but as notably modest as to color and ornament.

All parties having seated themselves, the dowager delivered herself of a remark that was not unusual in its form, and yet it came from her lips with the impressiveness of Scripture: "The weather has been unpropitious of late, Miss Hawkins." "It has indeed," said Laura.

"The climate seems to be variable." "It is its nature of old, here," said the daughter--stating it apparently as a fact, only, and by her manner waving aside all personal responsibility on account of it.

"Is it not so, mamma ?" "Quite so, my child.