All these arrangements were suddenly brought to a close by the peal of the
door-bell, just as the little stage-tinkle of a theatre stops preparation,
and compels the actors to stand forward as they are. Mrs. Jawleyford threw
aside her silk apron, and took a hasty glance of her face in the old
eagle-topped mirror in the still-room; the young ladies discarded their
coarse dirty pocket-handkerchiefs, and gently drew elaborately fringed ones
through their taper fingers to give them an air of use, as they took a
hasty review of themselves in the swing mirrors; the housemaid hurried off
with a whole armful of brown holland; and Jawleyford threw himself into
attitude in an elaborately carved, richly cushioned, easy-chair, with a
Disraeli's _Life of Lord George Bentinck_ in his hand. But Jawleyford's
thoughts were far from his book. He was sitting on thorns lest there might
not be a proper guard of honour to receive Mr. Sponge at the entrance.
Jawleyford, as we said before, was not the man to entertain unless he could
do it 'properly'; and, as we all have our pitch-notes of propriety up to
which we play, we may state that Jawleyford's note was a butler and two
footmen.
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