So James asked him to sit down in the drawing-room, and he would let you know." "I must go," thought Ellinor.

"I will send him away directly; to come, thinking of marriage to a house like this--to-day, too!" And she went down hastily, and in a hard unsparing mood towards a man, whose affection for her she thought was like a gourd, grown up in a night, and of no account, but as a piece of foolish, boyish excitement.
She never thought of her own appearance--she had dressed without looking in the glass.

Her only object was to dismiss her would-be suitor as speedily as possible.

All feelings of shyness, awkwardness, or maiden modesty, were quenched and overcome.

In she went.
He was standing by the mantelpiece as she entered.