"
"Still less with her close by, with the Rectory family running in
and out to exchange remarks. No, no, hold fast to insisting that
she must not leave the ancestral halls. That you can do dutifully
and gracefully."
Cecil knew she had been betrayed into the contrary; but they were by
this time in the High Street, bowing to others of the committee on
their way to the town-hall, a structure of parti-coloured brick in
harlequin patterns, with a peaked roof, all over little sham domes,
which went far to justify its title of the Rat-house, since nothing
larger could well use them. The facade was thus somewhat imposing;
of the rear the less said the better; and as to the interior, it was
at present one expanse of dust, impeded by scaffold-poles, and all
the windows had large blotches of paint upon them.
It required a lively imagination to devise situations for the
stalls; but Mrs. Duncombe valiantly tripped about, instructing her
attendant carpenter with little assistance except from the well-
experienced Miss Strangeways. The other ladies had enough to do in
keeping their plumage unsoiled.
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