"I had dreamed this day-dream many times over before the carriage
stopped with a shake, and Aunt Harriet roused me, asking if I were
asleep. In another minute or so we were in the hall, and here I met
with my first disappointment.

"To begin with, I had seen the hall unfurnished, and had not imagined
it otherwise. I had pictured Mrs. Moss in her beauty and rose brocade,
the sole ornament of its cold emptiness. Then (though I knew that my
grandmother and aunt must both be present) I had really fancied myself
the chief character in this interview with Mrs. Moss. I had thought of
myself as rushing up the stairs to meet her, and laying the pincushion
at her green satin feet. And now that at last I was really in the
hall, I should not have known it again. It was carpeted from end to
end. Fragrant orange-trees stood in tubs, large hunting-pictures hung
upon the walls, below which stood cases of stuffed birds, and over all
presided a footman in livery, who himself looked like a stuffed
specimen of the human race with unusually bright plumage.

"No face peeped over the banisters, and when we went upstairs, the
footman went first (as seemed due to him), then my grandmother,
followed by my aunt, and lastly I, in the humblest insignificance,
behind them. My feet sank into the soft stair-carpets, I vacantly
admired the elegant luxury around me, with an odd sensation of
heartache. Everything was beautiful, but I had wanted nothing to be
beautiful but Mrs. Moss.

"Already the vision began to fade. That full-fed footman troubled my
fancies. His scarlet plush killed the tender tints of the rosebuds in
my thoughts, and the streaky powder upon his hair seemed a mockery of
the _toupêe_ I hoped to see, whose whiteness should enhance the lustre