The truthtellers Author:John Strange Winter Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: PART II. CHAPTER III THE ARRIVAL OF THE TRUTH-TELLERS. In due course of time the house in Hans Place was entirely ready for its young guests, and the da... more »y and hour of their arrival drew very near. Miss Mortimer had arrayed herself in the most becoming mourning, a little deeper, perhaps, than she would have thought necessary had the late Sir Thomas's will not rendered it necessary that his children should be transported from their Shetland home to her own immediate vicinity. Miss Mortimer was a lady who had no belief in that grief which runs rampant. Her regrets for her only brother were subdued and decorous. Left to her own unbiassed judgment, they would have taken the form of light and airy attire, and by that I do not mean light and airy as to texture, but rather as an indication of depth of woe. However, as she was so soon to expect the immediate presence of her young nieces and nephews, she sacrificed her personal inclinations sufficiently to order mourning which was really quite deep in its character. " No, Madame Zareen, I will not begin with chitfon," she replied in response to a really touching suggestion from the great dress-maker on the subject of chiffon as an embellishment to a dinner costume; " I will not begin with chiffon. You see I should not like in any way to hurt the feelings of these poor young creatures, and although the loss of a brother is a very great loss, yet it is not in any way commensurate with the terrible blank which is left by the death of a parent,—an only remaining parent, too. Well, perhaps, I may have just a little jet on the sleeves, but nothing showy. I wouldn't hurt their poor young feelings for the world." So, by the time the five young Shetlanders were due in Hans Place, Miss Mortimer might have been seen arrayed in garments w...« less