For Mrs.Pendyce had been a pretty woman, and her feet were as small as ever.
Beside her on a spindley table stood a china bowl filled with dried rose-leaves, whereon had been scattered an essence smelling like sweetbriar, whose secret she had learned from her mother in the old Warwickshire home of the Totteridges, long since sold to Mr.Abraham Brightman.

Mrs.Pendyce, born in the year 1840, loved sweet perfumes, and was not ashamed of using them.
The Indian summer sun was soft and bright; and wistful, soft, and bright were Mrs.Pendyce's eyes, fixed on the letter in her lap.

She turned it over and began to read again.

A wrinkle visited her brow.

It was not often that a letter demanding decision or involving responsibility came to her hands past the kind and just censorship of Horace Pendyce.