With these, a white toilet-cover, and
a chair or two from the drawing-room, they so changed the room that
Cosmo declared he would not have known it. They then filled the
grate with as much fuel as it would hold, and running fast down the
two stairs, went again to the kitchen. At the door of it, however,
Aggie gave her companion the slip, and set out to go back to her
grannie at Muir o' Warlock.
Cosmo found the table spread for supper, the English lord sitting
with his wine before him, and the lady in his grandmother's chair,
leaning back, and yawning wearily. Lord Mergwain looked muddled,
and his daughter cast on him now and then a look that had in it
more of annoyance than affection. He was not now a very pleasant
lord to look on, whatever he might once have been. He was red-faced
and blear-eyed, and his nose, partly from the snuff which he took
in large quantity, was much injured in shape and colour: a closer
description the historical muse declines. His eyes had once been
blue, but tobacco, potations, revellings day and night--everything
but tears, had washed from them almost all the colour. It added
much to the strange unpleasantness of his appearance, that he wore
a jet-black wig, so that to the unnatural came the untimely, and
enhanced the withered. His mouth, which was full of false teeth,
very white, and ill-fitting, had a cruel expression, and Death
seemed to look out every time he grinned.
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