But there were no more curtsies--no, he was not come;
she felt sure there was nothing else passing the pew door but the
house-keeper's black bonnet and the lady's maid's beautiful straw hat
that had once been Miss Lydia's, and then the powdered heads of the
butler and footman. No, he was not there; yet she would look now--she
might be mistaken--for, after all, she had not looked. So she lifted
up her eyelids and glanced timidly at the cushioned pew in the
chancel--there was no one but old Mr. Donnithorne rubbing his spectacles
with his white handkerchief, and Miss Lydia opening the large gilt-edged
prayer-book. The chill disappointment was too hard to bear. She felt
herself turning pale, her lips trembling; she was ready to cry. Oh, what
SHOULD she do? Everybody would know the reason; they would know she was
crying because Arthur was not there. And Mr. Craig, with the wonderful
hothouse plant in his button-hole, was staring at her, she knew. It was
dreadfully long before the General Confession began, so that she could
kneel down. Two great drops WOULD fall then, but no one saw them except
good-natured Molly, for her aunt and uncle knelt with their backs
towards her. Molly, unable to imagine any cause for tears in church
except faintness, of which she had a vague traditional knowledge, drew
out of her pocket a queer little flat blue smelling-bottle, and after
much labour in pulling the cork out, thrust the narrow neck against
Hetty's nostrils.
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