Explore "The Great House" by Stanley J. Weyman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
It was noon on that day, the day of the meeting at Riddsley, and Mary was sitting in the parlor at the Gatehouse. She was stooping over the fire with her eyes on the embers. The old hound lay beside her with his muzzle resting on her shoe, and Mrs. Toft, solidly poised on her feet, on the farther side of the table, rolled her apron about her arms and considered the pair.
"It's given us all a rare shock," she said as she marked the girl's listless pose, "the poor Master's death! That sudden and queer, too! I don't know that I'm better for it, myself, and Toft goes up and down like a toad under a harrow, he's that restless! For 'Truria, she's fairly mazed. Her body's here and her thoughts are lord knows where. Toft, he seems to think something will come of her and her reverend -- "