Chapter 30 - Page 2

no more. Secondly, my green silk dress, trimmed with my mother's famous lace--another work of Art, equally adorable with the first. Whether I looked at the luncheon-table, or whether I looked in the glass, I could feel that I worthily asserted my nation; I could say to myself, Even in this remote corner of the earth, the pilgrim of civilization searching for the elegant luxuries of life, looks and sees--France supreme!

The clock chimed the quarter past three. Lucilla, wearying, for the hundredth time of waiting in her own room, put her head in at the door, and still repeated the never-changing question--"No signs of them yet?"

"None, my love."

"Oh, how much longer will they keep us waiting!"

"Patience, Lucilla--patience!"

She disappeared again, with a weary sigh. Five minutes more passed; and old Zillah peeped into the room next.

"Here they are, ma'am, in a chaise at the gate!"

I shook out the skirts of my green silk, I cast a last inspiriting glance at the Mayonnaise. Nugent's cheerful voice reached me from the garden, conducting the strangers. "This way, gentlemen--follow me." A pause. Steps outside. The door opened. Nugent brought them in.

Herr Grosse, from America. Mr. Sebright of London.

The German gave a little start when my name was mentioned. The Englishman remained perfectly unaffected by it. Herr Grosse had heard of my glorious Pratolungo. Mr. Sebright was barbarously ignorant of his existence. I shall describe Herr Grosse first, and shall take the greatest pains with him.

A squat, broad, sturdy body, waddling on a pair of short bandy legs; slovenly, shabby, unbrushed clothes; a big square bilious-yellow face, surmounted by a mop of thick iron-grey hair; dark beetle-brows; a pair of staring, fierce, black, goggle eyes, with huge circular spectacles standing up like fortifications in front of them; a shaggy beard and mustache of mixed black, white, and grey; a prodigious cameo ring on the forefinger of one hairy hand; the other hand always in and out of a deep silver snuff-box like a small tea-caddy; a rough rasping voice; a diabolically humourous smile; a curtly confident way of speaking; resolution, independence, power, expressed all over him from head to foot--there is the portrait of the man who held in his hands (if Nugent was to be trusted) the restoration of Lucilla's sight!

The English oculist was as unlike his German colleague as it is possible for one human being to be to another.

Mr. Sebright was slim and spare, and scrupulously (painfully) clean and neat. His smooth light hair was carefully parted; his well-shaved face exhibited two little crisp morsels of whisker about two inches long, and no hair more. His decent black clothes were perfectly made; he wore no ornaments, not even a watch-chain; he moved deliberately, he spoke gravely