She ransacked the shelves of the college library, she
borrowed photographs of the cathedrals, she pored over the folio
pages of "The Seats of Noblemen and Gentlemen." She was like some
banished princess who learns that she has inherited a domain in her
own country, who knows that she will never see it, yet feels,
wherever she walks, its soil beneath her feet.
May was half over, and the Higher Thought Club was to hold its last
meeting, previous to the college festivities which, in early June,
agreeably disorganized the social routine of Wentworth. The meeting
was to take place in Margaret Ransom's drawing-room, and on the day
before she sat upstairs preparing for her dual duties as hostess and
orator--for she had been invited to read the final paper of the
course. In order to sum up with precision her conclusions on the
subject of English Gothic she had been rereading an analysis of the
structural features of the principal English cathedrals; and she was
murmuring over to herself the phrase: "The longitudinal arches of
Lincoln have an approximately elliptical form," when there came a
knock on the door, and Maria's voice announced: "There's a lady down
in the parlour.
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