Her card was mislaid, the girls were none of them at hand, and she felt as helpless as she commonly did when left alone.
'Oh, do come in, please! So glad to see you.

Have you been nearly blown away ?' For, though the rain had stopped, a boisterous northwest wind was still rushing through the valley, and the trees round Burwood were swaying and groaning under the force of its onslaught.
'Well, it is stormy,' said Mrs.Thornburgh, stepping in and undoing all the various safety-pins and elastics which had held her dress high above the mud.

'Are the girls out ?' 'Yes, Catherine and Agnes are at the school; and Rose, I think, is practising.' 'Ah, well,' said Mrs.Thornburgh, settling herself in a chair close by her friend, 'I wanted to find you alone.' Her face, framed in bushy curls and an old garden bonnet, was flushed and serious.

Her mittened hands were clasped nervously on her lap, and there was about her such an air of forcibly restrained excitement, that Mrs.Leyburn's mild eyes gazed at her with some astonishment.

The two women were a curious contrast: Mrs.Thornburgh short, inclined, as we know, to be stout, ample and abounding in all things, whether it were curls or cap-strings or conversation; Mrs.Leyburn tall and well proportioned, well dressed, with the same graceful ways and languid pretty manners as had first attracted her husband's attention thirty years before.