Hogberry and of her
clear, resonant voice. It was a voice that would have gone with a garden
party on a larger scale; it went into adjacent premises; it included the
gardener who was far up the vegetable patch and technically out of play.
The only other men were my aunt's doctor, two of the clergy, amiable
contrasted men, and Mrs. Hogberry's imperfectly grown-up son, a youth
just bursting into collar. The rest were women, except for a young girl
or so in a state of speechless good behaviour. Marion also was there.
Marion and I had arrived a little estranged, and I remember her as
a silent presence, a shadow across all that sunlit emptiness of
intercourse. We had embittered each other with one of those miserable
little disputes that seemed so unavoidable between us. She had, with the
help of Smithie, dressed rather elaborately for the occasion, and when
she saw me prepared to accompany her in, I think it was a grey suit,
she protested that silk hat and frock coat were imperative. I was
recalcitrant, she quoted an illustrated paper showing a garden party
with the King present, and finally I capitulated--but after my evil
habit, resentfully.
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