He did not look at all at home among the Dawsons' friends, and I wondered how Lady Ardaragh had persuaded him to come.
For a moment I did not see Lady Ardaragh anywhere, but presently her uplifted voice told me where she was, and looking down I caught a glimpse of her pretty shoulders showing rosily out of a pale green frock.

She was talking to some one; I could not see who it was for the moment.
I had not yet seen Richard Dawson; and as my eye went from one to the other of the gentlemen without seeing him, I began to be almost hopeful that he was not there.
Sir Arthur Ardaragh was talking to my grandmother and to Mrs.Dawson, who plainly was too much absorbed by the anxieties of the occasion to hear much of what he was saying.

She kept looking with an air of trepidation at her husband who was being effusively polite to my grandfather.
There were only ourselves and the Ardaraghs present of the county-people.

The other guests were staying at Damerstown or had come from a distance; they were very fashionable, but I did not like the very low dresses and the loud talk of the ladies, nor the tired, cynical-looking men.

Every one of the men, old and young, wore the same expression.