"A sister-in-law, who lives at Norwich, tells me it has been quite
unsafe to order poultry. The plague--you see. It attacks the rats, and
through them other creatures."
"And the local authorities are not taking proper steps?" asked Mrs.
Thornbury.
"That she does not say. But she describes the attitude of the educated
people--who should know better--as callous in the extreme. Of course,
my sister-in-law is one of those active modern women, who always takes
things up, you know--the kind of woman one admires, though one does not
feel, at least I do not feel--but then she has a constitution of iron."
Mrs. Elliot, brought back to the consideration of her own delicacy, here
sighed.
"A very animated face," said Mrs. Thornbury, looking at Evelyn M. who
had stopped near them to pin tight a scarlet flower at her breast. It
would not stay, and, with a spirited gesture of impatience, she thrust
it into her partner's button-hole. He was a tall melancholy youth, who
received the gift as a knight might receive his lady's token.
"Very trying to the eyes," was Mrs. Eliot's next remark, after watching
the yellow whirl in which so few of the whirlers had either name or
character for her, for a few minutes. Bursting out of the crowd, Helen
approached them, and took a vacant chair.
"May I sit by you?" she said, smiling and breathing fast. "I suppose I
ought to be ashamed of myself," she went on, sitting down, "at my age.
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