The Man in Possession — page 84: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE MAN IN POSSESSION. 79 CHAPTER IX. FRIENDSHIP—WITH VARIATIONS. Tue lights of Croft glimmered brightly on the frosty air, as the carriage bore Kate and her father up the leafless avenue. O'Brien was in radiant spirits, but the girl grew more and more depressed as they neared the mag- nificent mansion whose hospitality she was to share for the next fortnight. She had stayed at country- houses, but never at one so magnificent as this. When the carriage stopped at the door, and it was flung open to show the luxurious interior of the great hall, rosy in atmosphere of warmth and light, with an array of ‘‘fair women and brave men,” with the sound of low voices and musical laughter and the tinkling of tea-cups, and the gorgeous liveries of footmen moving to and fro, and the shimmer of satins and silks that gave an enchanting prospect of tea-zowns, elaborate in simplicity,—when all this was revealed to Kate’s dazzled eyes she felt as one who ‘suddenly treads the portal of an unknown temple. A temple of Fashion and Wealth dedicated to the Goddess of Society—a temple in which home-made gowns of cotton-backed satin, and memories of Commiclboo (Sri C(O)