"Uncle Mathew! Here! in this house!" Maggie, even in the moment of
her first astonishment, was amazed at her own delight. That she
should ever feel THAT about Uncle Mathew! Truly it showed how
unhappy she had been, and she ran upstairs, two steps at a time, and
pushed back the drawing-room door.
"Uncle Mathew!" she cried.
Then at the sight of him she stood where she was. The man who faced
her, with all his old confusion of nervousness and uneasy geniality,
was, indeed, Uncle Mathew, but Uncle Mathew glorified, shabbily
glorified and at the same time a little abashed as though she had
caught him in the act of laying a mine that would blow up the whole
house. He was wearing finer clothes than she had ever seen him in
before--a frock coat, quite new but fitting him badly, so that it
was buttoned too tightly across his stomach and loose across the
back. He had a white flower in his button-hole, and a rather soiled
white handkerchief protruded from his breast-pocket. One leg of his
dark grey trousers had been creased in two places, and there were
little spots of blood on his high white collar because he had cut
himself shaving.
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