Only one remark that I have any
recollection of she made to him: "When I look on my nephew, Mr.
Smithers, I realise that dust we are, and dust shall become. You are
hot, dirty, and incorrigible, Arthur."
She sat at the head of the table, Seaton at the foot, and I, before a
wide waste of damask tablecloth, between them. It was an old and rather
close dining-room, with windows thrown wide to the green garden and a
wonderful cascade of fading roses. Miss Seaton's great chair faced this
window, so that its rose-reflected light shone full on her yellowish
face, and on just such chocolate eyes as my schoolfellow's, except that
hers were more than half-covered by unusually long and heavy lids.
There she sat, eating, with those sluggish eyes fixed for the most part
on my face; above them stood the deep-lined fork between her eyebrows;
and above that the wide expanse of a remarkable brow beneath its
strange steep bank of hair. The lunch was copious, and consisted, I
remember, of all such dishes as are generally considered mischievous
and too good for the schoolboy digestion--lobster mayonnaise, cold game
sausages, an immense veal and ham pie farced with eggs and numberless
delicious flavours; besides sauces, kickshaws, creams, and sweetmeats.
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