So once more the door into the garden opened, and out shot Mrs Weston.
Olga by this time had made her tour of the garden, and might she see
the house? She might. There was a pretty music-room. At this stage,
just as Mrs Weston was poured out in the garden, as with the floodgates
being unopened, the crowd that followed her came surging into
Shakespeare's garden, and never had the mermaid's tail behind which was
secreted the electric bell, experienced such feverish usage. Pressure
after pressure invoked its aid, and the pretexts for re-admission were
soon not made at all, or simply disregarded by the parlour-maid.
Colonel Boucher might have left a bull-dog, and Mrs Antrobus an ear
trumpet, or Miss Antrobus (Piggy) a shoe lace, and the other Miss
Antrobus (Goosie) a shoe-horn: but in brisk succession the guests who
had been so sarcastic about the party on the village-green, jostled
each other in order to revisit the scenes of their irony. Miss Olga
Bracely had been known to enter the portals, and as many of them who
entered after her, found a Guru as well.
Olga was in the music-room when the crowd had congested the hall.
People were introduced to her, and sank down into the nearest chairs.
Mrs Antrobus took up her old place by the keyboard of the piano.
Everybody seemed to be expecting something, and by degrees the import
of their longing was borne in upon Olga.
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