She wrapped her
warmly against the February blast, and insisted upon going out to see her
seated in the cab, whereby she offered to the pedestrians of that
neighbourhood a seraphic vision of loveliness with tumbled hair.
Charlotte had been always delightful, but Charlotte engaged to Valentine
Hawkehurst was a creature of supernal sweetness and brightness--a radiant
ministering angel, hovering lightly above a world too common for her foot
to rest upon.
Miss Paget found her father suffering from a by no means severe attack of
a respectable family gout, a little peevish from the effects of this
affliction, but not at all depressed in mind. He had, indeed, the manner
of a man with whom things are going pleasantly. There was a satisfaction
in his tone, a placidity in his face, except when distorted for the
moment by a twinge of pain, that were new to Diana, who had not been
accustomed to behold the brighter side of her father's disposition. He
seemed grateful for his daughter's visit, and received her with unwonted
kindness of manner.
"You have come very promptly, my dear, and I am gratified by your early
compliance with my request," he said with dignified affection, after he
had given his daughter the kiss of greeting. "I was a great sufferer last
night, Diana, a great sufferer, a prisoner to this chair, and the woman
below attempted to send me up a dinner--_such_ a dinner! One would think
a very small degree of education necessary for the stewing of a kidney,
but the things that woman gave me last night were like morsels of stewed
leather.
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