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At Her Mercy; A Novel by the Author of "found Dead.".
At Her Mercy A Novel by the Author of found Dead Author:James Payn General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1874 Original Publisher: B.Taughnitz Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can sel... more »ect from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: CHAPTER VIII. In which Mr. Angelo Hulet is "upset.' The public dinner at Lucullus Mansion was a very different affair from English tables d'hdte in general, where folks converse in cliques, and glare at their vis-a-vis, or, silent as fishes, preserve a severe, but sad decorum, befitting a Caesar when making his arrangements for perishing decently. After the company was seated, each person was here introduced to his or her neighbour, by either the master or the mistress of the ceremonies, and the character of an ordinary dinner-party was imparted to the affair as much as possible. Mr. Hodlin Barmby, a broad-shouldered "acred" looking gentleman, did the honours at the bottom of the table, and looked the genial host to perfection; he was not eloquent -- unless you got him on a horse -- but was always ready to come to the rescue of the conversation with the weather and the crops; and if it needed a dead lift, had only to look towards his better half, in a concerted manner, for the required assistance. He had his orders to refer to "my father, Sir Hesketh," when any new coiner was present, but in other respects was very wisely permitted to take his own line; if any exceptional people were at table -- whom a reference to the prospects for the next Derby was likely to shock -- Mrs. Barmby took care to place them in her own neighbourhood. Under these circumstances the host had generally the pick of the company about him, while the hostess was surrounded with the feebler sort, who required colloquial manipulation. On the present occasion, however, there were none of what Mrs...« less