The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope

On the first of March, Conway Dalrymple's easel was put up in Mrs. Dobbs Broughton's boudoir upstairs, the canvas was placed upon it on which the outlines of Jael and Sisera had been already drawn, and Mrs. Broughton and Clara Van Siever and Conway Dalrymple were assembled with the view of steady art-work. But before we see how they began their work together, we will go back for a moment to John Eames on his return to his London lodgings. The first thing every man does when he returns home after an absence, is to look at his letters, and John Eames looked at his. There were not very many. There was a note marked immediate, from Sir Raffle Buffle, in which Sir R. had scrawled in four lines a notification that he should be driven to an extremity of inconvenience if Eames were not at his post at half-past nine on the following morning. "I think I see myself there at that hour," said John.

There was a notification of a house dinner, which he was asked to join, at his club, and a card for an evening gathering at Lady Glencora Palliser's -- procured for him by his friend Conway -- and an invitation to dinner at the house of his uncle, Mr. Toogood; and there was a scented note in the handwriting of a lady, which he did not recognize. "My nearest and dearest friend, M. D. M.," he said, as he opened the note and looked at the signature. Then he read the letter from Miss Demolines.