l airs, and mitigated what in other
places was found oppressive. However, the Seaforth people said it was
oppressive too; and things are so relative in the affairs of life that
I do not know if they were more contented than their neighbours. But
everybody said the heat was fine for the hay; and as most of the
inhabitants had more or less of that crop to get in, they criticised
the weather only at times when they were thinking of it in some other
connection.

At Mrs. Dallas's there was no criticism of anything. In the large
comfortable rooms, where windows were all open, and blinds tempering
the too ardent light, and cool mats on the floors, and chintz furniture
looked light and summery, there was an atmosphere of pure enjoyment and
expectation, for Pitt was coming home again, and his mother was looking
for him with every day. She was sitting now awaiting him; no one could
tell at what hour he might arrive; and his mother's face was beautiful
with hope. She was her old self; not changed at all by the four or five
years of Pitt's absence; as handsome and as young and as stately as
ever. She made no demonstration now; did not worry either herself or
others with questions and speculations and hopes and fears respecting
her son's coming; yet you could see on her fine face, if you were
clever at reading faces, the lines of pride and joy, and now and then a
quiver of tenderness. It was seen by one who was sitting with her,
whose interest and curiosity it involuntarily moved.

This second person was a younger lady. Indeed a _young_ lady, not by
comparison, but absolutely. A very attractive person too. She had an
exceedingly good figure, which the trying dress of those times showed
in its full beauty. Woe to the lady then whose shoulders were not
straight, or the lines of her figure not flowing, or the proportions of
it not satisfactory. Every ungracefulness must have shown its full
deformity, with no possibility of disguise; every angle must have been
aggravated, and every untoward movement made doubly fatal. But the
dress only set off and developed the beauty that could bear it. And the
lady sitting with Mrs. Dallas neither feared nor had need to fear
criticism. Something of that fact appeared in her graceful posture and
in the brow of habitual superiority, and in the look of the eyes that
were now and then lifted from her work to her companion. The eyes were
beautiful, and they were also queenly; at least their calm fearless