The Works of George W. M. Reynolds — page 189: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

172 | REYNOLDS’ WORKS the room. Thus was it that Juliana was led to observe that something had transpired to vex and alarm her mother, but though suddenly animated with a deep curiosity to learn what it was, she did not dare follow her parent from the room for the purpose. Lady Saxondale, with a gracious apology to those guests who were seated near her for her being compelled to leave them for an instant, quitted the apartment, and proceeded down-stairs to the room where the obtrusive visitress was waiting to see her. Her ladyship remained absent for about a quarter of an hour, during which interval Juliana was puzzling herself to conjecture what on earth it could be that had thus evidently troubled her mother. At the expiration of that time Lady Saxondale returned to the drawing-room, and still from beneath her long, dark lashes did Juliana intently watch her mother’s countenance. She at once saw that it was pale, and bore the traces of very recent agitation, an agitation, too, which was evidently still heaving within her ladyship’s bosom, but all outward appearance of which she was endeavouring with a mighty effort to conceal. Returning to her seat, she at once entered with high-bred ease and graceful courtesy into the topic of the conversation that was going on around her, but in the tones of her mother’s voice the keen and cunning Juliana perceived the evidences of that inward trouble which she had already observed reflected in her looks. Dinner was announced, and the aristocratic throng pro- ceeded to the banqueting-room, which presented a magnifi- cent appearance to the eye. It was completely flooded with the dazzling light shed from two lustres each containing at least forty wax candles, the table literally groaned beneath the massive services of plate, and twenty domestics in gorgeous liveries were in attendance. ‘The dinner passed off as all such banquets in high hfe usually do, that is to say, heavily, all real enthusiasm of feeling and true sense of enjoyment being weighed down and chilled by the petrify- ing influence of formality. Lord Petersfield was, if possible, more reserved, guarded, and cautious in all he said and did than ever, and his air of diplomacy hung about him with a truly awful effect. When asked which soup he would prefer, he gave the domestic such an overwhelming gaze that the unfortunate footman wished the floor would open Gomichbooks com