"What is it?" asked Eliza
Marshall.
"August is in the kitchen, with his face all cut and bleeding." Jane left
her father. "Let me go out and see what it is." It was another chapter in
the Van Horn matter. Roger, having become more familiar with police-court
methods, had been pushing things with greater vigor and effect. During
the past night two or three ruffians had broken into the stable, had
shattered the windows of the new carriage and defaced its panels, and had
beaten the coachman.
"There!" cried Rosy. "How much longer have we got to live down here among
all these savages and hoodlums?"
Eliza Marshall made no reply, and Rosy felt that this in itself was to
have gained a point.
XIII
Eliza Marshall meditated on the Bates dinner for several days succeeding,
and when the following Saturday morning came round she was still busy
with it. Saturday was her day for going over the antiquated accumulations
of her parlor; no hands ever dusted and replaced the ornaments on her
what-not save her own. She had been very chary of expressing herself
about Susan Bates's entertainment, even to Jane. But now she felt that
the time had come when she might trust herself to speak.
"I can't say I see the need of so many kinds of spoons," she said, as she
transferred one of her gilt candelabra from the what-not to the contorted
old rosewood centre-table: the candelabra were of an operatic cast--the
one under removal represented (though all unknown to Eliza Marshall)
Manrico and Leonora clasped in each other's arms beneath a bower-like
tree.
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