Scarcely had my maid finished spreading out my various articles of
attire for the evening (when there was to be a great dinner-party)
when the rumble of a carriage announced that Lady Speldhurst had
arrived. The short winter's day drew to a close, and a large
number of guests were gathered together in the ample drawing-room,
around the blaze of the wood-fire, after dinner. My father, I
recollect, was not with us at first. There were some squires of
the old, hard-riding, hard-drinking stamp still lingering over
their port in the dining-room, and the host, of course, could not
leave them. But the ladies and all the younger gentlemen--both
those who slept under our roof, and those who would have a dozen
miles of fog and mire to encounter on their road home--were all
together. Need I say that Reginald was there? He sat near me--my
accepted lover, my plighted future husband. We were to be married
in the spring. My sisters were not far off; they, too, had found
eyes that sparkled and softened in meeting theirs, had found hearts
that beat responsive to their own. And, in their cases, no rude
frost nipped the blossom ere it became the fruit; there was no
canker in their flowerets of young hope, no cloud in their sky.
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