To
the palings of the fence several carts and buggies had been hitched, and
the horses were eating down his neatly clipped hedge--it was all he
could do not to rush out and call their owners to account. The level
sunrays flooded the rooms, showing up hitherto unnoticed smudges and
scratches on the wall-papers; showing the prints of hundreds of dusty
feet on the carpetless floors. Voices echoed in hollow fashion through
the naked rooms; men shouted and spat as they tugged heavy articles
along the hall, or bumped them down the stairs. It was pandemonium. The
death of a loved human being could not, he thought, have been more
painful to witness. Thus a home went to pieces; thus was a page of one's
life turned.--He hastened away to rejoin Mary.
There followed a week of Mrs. Tilly's somewhat stifling hospitality,
when one was forced three times a day to over-eat oneself for fear of
giving offence; followed formal presentations of silver and plate from
Masonic Lodge and District Hospital, as well as a couple of public
testimonials got up by his medical brethren. But at length all was over:
the last visit had been paid and received, the last evening party in
their honour sat through; and Mahony breathed again. He had felt stiff
and unnatural under this overdose of demonstrativeness. Now--as always
on sighting relief from a state of things that irked him--he underwent
a sudden change, turned hearty and spontaneous, thus innocently
succeeding in leaving a good impression behind him.
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