There was anything but timidity in the grand air with which she gave him her card, saying, "Announce me to Madam Chartley, Hawkins." She was a plump little body, ill adapted to stately airs and graces, but she had been rehearsing this entrance mentally for days, and she swept into the reception room as if she were the daughter of a duke.
"There!" she said to herself as the portieres dropped behind her.

"I hope he was properly impressed." Then catching sight of her reflection in a long mirror opposite, she wilted into an attitude of abject despair.

A loop of milliner's wire, from which the ribbon had slipped, stood up stiff and straight in the bow on her hat.

She proceeded to put it back in place with anxious pats and touches, exclaiming in an anguished whisper, "Oh, _why_ is it, that whenever I feel particularly imposing and Queen Annish inside, I always look so dishevelled and Mary Annish outside! Here's my hat cocked over one eye and my hair straggling out in wisps like a crazy thing.

I wonder what Hawkins thought." Hawkins, on his way up stairs was spelling out the name on the card he carried.