PECCAVI! OR GEOFFREY SINGLETON'S MISTAKE. CHAPTER I. TWO MAD GALLOPS. "Holy Saint Francis, what a change is here! ROMEO AND JULIET: THE next day to Singleton's enquiries for Mrs. Armitage, an answer came that she was rather indisposed; but that she hoped to be up in the afternoon, and would receive him if he cared to drink a cup of tea. VOL. II. B Geoffrey whiled away the time till then with Mrs. Swansdown, who was in ecstasies at the thrilling incidents which had befallen the party of the previous day. "As for Mrs. Mackinnon," said the landlady, "I don't pity her one bit. Catlin, the advocate, is a hard man, and he is agent for the Rashcombe property. As sure as eggs is eggs, she'll have to pay through the noseand serve her right, too. Fires were meant to be lit in grates, and not among the trees." Soon after four Singleton sent up his name by one of the hotel servants, and after a few minutes he was admitted to the presence. Mrs. Armitage was on the sofa, and she did not get up to meet him-that would have disarranged her pose and the graceful fall of her drapery. But she smiled on him very sweetly, and hoped he was none the worse for the mishaps of yesterday, and saying this she made a piteous grimace. "But do sit down. Here take this," point ing to a chair close by her. "I seem to have got a chill somehow ; I felt quite shivery when I got up this morning, and all my bones ached, so I have had to wrap up extra warm. These thick things are rather out of place at this time of the year, arn't they?" She was dressed in black velvet-a long close-fitting robe that came nigh up to her throat, and waved majestically round her, flooding the sofa with its rich, soft folds. Her hair all loose and rippling, was hanging down about her neck and back. She wore-to save her dress no doubt-a large white silk pocket handkerchief shawl-wise on her shoulders; but the long tresses fell far below that narrow triangle down to the leather belt that buckled in her slender waist. Her only ornament was a chain of great amber beads twisted coil upon coil around her neck, and from which a heavy cross of the same hung pendant on her breast. The dead yellow of the amber was an admirable foil to the sparkling golden hair. And as she lay there in her jet black robes, she looked like some precious gem of art set in an ebony frame. My hand 66 I hope I'm not getting feverish," she went on, still harping on her ailments. is quite hot-just feel it." Such a hand! It might have been a queen's or bishop's-it was such a plump, dimpled, dainty hand; white as parian marble, and as smooth, yet with the delicate tracery of blue veins showing clearly through the softly polished skin. The slender, symmetrical fingers were all glittering with brilliants, but not one of the jewelled rings that encircled them could compete with the rosy tinted tips. Geoffrey took the hand she extended to him as calmly and complacently as if he were receiving a costly present,―a fragile piece of priceless workmanship, to be treated as gingerly as some rare old gossamer, silver work, or endlessly intricate ivory carving. |