It was not festive, it was neither unnaturally jocular nor showy in any way, but it was delightfully confident and serene.

And the mistress was as calm in her way, though for once hers was the colder way, and it was the opinion of the pantry that she felt more than she showed; without a doubt Mrs.Woodgate had more work to restrain, now her tears for Rachel, and now her consuming indignation with the absentees.
"Your wife feels it as much as mine," said Steel to the vicar, when the gentlemen were alone at last; and one of them could have struck him for the speech, one who had insight and could feel himself.
"I wouldn't go so far as that," the good vicar rejoined.

"But Morna feels it dreadfully.

Dreadfully she feels it!" "I almost wish we had kept the table as it was," pursued Steel over his cigar, "and had one of those flash-light photographs taken, as they do at all the twopenny banquets nowadays.

All that was left of them--left of six-and-twenty!" His flippant tone made Langholm writhe, and drove him into the conversation to change its tenor.