farther side of the corridor. Marcia could now see her mother's face more
distinctly as Lady Coryston sat in a brown study, not listening, evidently,
to the very halting gentleman who was in possession of the House, though
her eyes still roamed the fast-emptying benches.

It was the face of a woman on the wrong side of fifty. The complexion
was extremely fair, with gray shades in it. The eyes, pale in color but
singularly imperious and direct, were sunk deep under straight brows.
The nose was long, prominent, and delicately sharp in the nostril. These
features, together with the long upper lip and severely cut mouth and chin,
the slightly hollow cheeks and the thin containing oval of the face, set
in pale and still abundant hair, made a harsh yet, on the whole, handsome
impression. There was at Coryston, in the gallery, a picture of Elizabeth
Tudor in her later years to which Lady Coryston had been often compared;
and she, who as a rule disliked any reference to her personal appearance,
did not, it was sometimes remarked, resent this particular comparison. The
likeness was carried further by Lady Coryston's tall and gaunt frame; by
her formidable carriage and step; and by the energy of the long-fingered
hands. In dress also there was some parallel between her and the Queen of
many gowns. Lady Coryston seldom wore colors, but the richest of black
silks and satins and the finest of laces were pressed night and day into
the service of her masterful good looks. She made her own fashions. Amid
the large and befeathered hats of the day, for instance, she alone wore
habitually a kind of coif made of thin black lace on her fair face, the
lappets of which were fastened with a diamond close beneath her chin. For
the country she invented modifications of her London dress, which, while
loose and comfortable, were scarcely less stately. And whatever she wore
seemed always part and parcel of her formidable self.

In Marcia's eyes, her mother was a wonderful being--oppressively