Very devout
people, who would never sit down to a breakfast or a dinner without the
grace before meat which honors the Giver of it, feel as if they thanked
Heaven enough for their tea and toast by partaking of them cheerfully
without audible petition or ascription. But the Widow was not exactly
mansion-house-bred, and so thought it necessary to give the Reverend
Doctor a peculiar look which he understood at once as inviting his
professional services. He, therefore, uttered a few simple words of
gratitude, very quietly,--much to the satisfaction of some of the
guests, who had expected one of those elaborate effusions, with rolling
up of the eyes and rhetorical accents, so frequent with eloquent divines
when they address their Maker in genteel company.
Everybody began talking with the person sitting next at hand. Mr.
Bernard naturally enough turned his attention first to the Widow; but
somehow or other the right side of the Widow seemed to be more wide
awake than the left side, next him, and he resigned her to the
courtesies of Mr. Dudley Venner, directing himself, not very
unwillingly, to the young girl next him on the other side. Miss Letty
Forester, the granddaughter of the Reverend Doctor, was city-bred, as
anybody might see, and city-dressed, as any woman would know at sight; a
man might only feel the general effect of clear, well-matched colors, of
harmonious proportions, of the cut which makes everything cling like a
bather's sleeve where a natural outline is to be kept, and ruffle itself
up like the hackle of a pitted fighting-cock where art has a right to
luxuriate in silken exuberance.
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