MRS. PALLINSON HAS VIEWS.


At seven o'clock on Sunday evening, as the neighbouring church bells were
just sounding their last peal, Mr. Fenton found himself on the threshold
of Mrs. Branston's house in Cavendish-square. It was rather a gloomy
mansion, pervaded throughout with evidences of its late owner's oriental
career; old Indian cabinets; ponderous chairs of elaborately-carved
ebony, clumsy in form and barbaric in design; curious old china and
lacquered ware of every kind, from gigantic vases to the tiniest cups and
saucers; ivory temples, and gods in silver and clay, crowded the
drawing-rooms and the broad landings on the staircase. The curtains and
chair-covers were of Indian embroidery; the carpets of oriental
manufacture. Everything had a gaudy semi-barbarous aspect.

Mrs. Branston received her guests in the back drawing-room, a smaller and
somewhat snugger apartment than the spacious chamber in front, which was
dimly visible in the light of a single moderator lamp and the red glow of
a fire through the wide-open archway between the two rooms. In the inner
room the lamps were brighter, and the fire burned cheerily; and here Mrs.
Branston had established for herself a comfortable nook in a deep
velvet-cushioned arm-chair, very low and capacious, sheltered luxuriously
from possible draughts by a high seven-leaved Japanese screen. The fair
Adela was a chilly personage, and liked to bask in her easy-chair before
the fire. She looked very pretty this evening, in her dense black dress,
with the airiest pretence of a widow's cap perched on her rich auburn
hair, and a voluminous Indian shawl of vivid scarlet making a drapery
about her shoulders. She was evidently very pleased to see John Saltram,
and gave a cordial welcome to his friend. On the opposite side of the
fire-place there was a tall, rather grim-looking lady, also in mourning,