Bab Bab 51 · Chapter LI

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She held the spindle as she sat,

Errina with the thick-coiled mat

Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes,

Gazing with a sad surprise

At surging visions of her destiny—

To spin the byssus drearily

In insect-labor, while the throng

Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song.

When Deronda presented himself at the door of his mother’s apartment in

the _Italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature

agitations. The two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly,

a little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was

this striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe

lines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. But Deronda could

notice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in

the presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood

awaiting his approach.

She was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black

lace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long

train stretching from her tall figure. Her arms, naked to the elbow,

except for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine

poise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. But

Deronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of

her, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips.

She sti