who had attempted to make a show with a new silk dress and a hat
in the latest fashion, but who had lamentably failed owing to the
slouchiness of her figure and some misadventure, by which her hat had
been set awry on her head and her usual complacency destroyed. Later, I
noted that her down-looking eyes had a false twinkle in them, and that,
commonplace as she looked, she was one to steer clear of in times of
necessity and distress.

She, too, evidently expected to find the door open and people assembled,
but she had not anticipated being confronted by the portrait on the
wall, and cringed in an unpleasant way as she stumbled by it into one of
the ill-lighted corners.

The old man, who had doubtless caught the rustle of her dress as she
passed him, emitted one short sentence.

"Almost late," said he.

Her answer was a sputter of words.

"It's the fault of that driver," she complained. "If he had taken one
drop more at the half-way house I might really not have got here at all.
That would not have inconvenienced _you_. But oh! what a grudge I would
have owed that skinflint brother of ours"--here she shook her fist at
the picture--"for making our good luck depend upon our arrival within
two short strokes of the clock!"

"There are several to come yet," blandly observed the lawyer. But before
the words were well out of his mouth we all became aware of a new
presence--a woman, whose sombre grace and quiet bearing gave distinction
to her unobtrusive entrance, and caused a feeling of something like awe
to follow the first sight of her cold features and deep,
heavily-fringed eyes. But this soon passed in the more human sentiment
awakened by the soft pleading which infused her gaze with a touching
femininity. She wore a long loose garment, which fell without a fold
from chin to foot, and in her arms she seemed to carry something.

Never before had I seen so beautiful a woman. As I was contemplating
her, with respect but yet with a masculine intentness I could not quite
suppress, two or three other persons came in. And now I began to notice
that the eyes of all these people turned mainly one way, and that was
toward the clock. Another small circumstance likewise drew my attention.
Whenever any one entered--and there were one or two additional arrivals
during the five minutes preceding the striking of the hour--a frown
settled for an instant on every brow, giving to each and all a similar
look, for the interpretation of