Presently, as she saw Hylda's eyes withdraw from the stage, and look at
her with a strange, soft moisture and a new light in them, she laid her
fan confidently on her friend's knee, and said in her abrupt whimsical
voice: "You like it, my darling; your eyes are as big as saucers. You
look as if you'd been seeing things, not things on that silly stage, but
what Verdi felt when he wrote the piece, or something of more account
than that."
"Yes, I've been seeing things," Hylda answered with a smile which came
from a new-born purpose, the dream of an idealist. "I've been seeing
things that Verdi did not see, and of more account, too. . . . Do you
suppose the House is up yet?"
A strange look flashed into the Duchess's eyes, which had been watching
her with as much pity as interest. Hylda had not been near the House of
Commons this session, though she had read the reports with her usual
care. She had shunned the place.
"Why, did you expect Eglington?" the Duchess asked idly, yet she was
watchful too, alert for every movement in this life where the footsteps
of happiness were falling by the edge of a precipice, over which she
would not allow herself to look.
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