Little by little I
began to suspect and to verify another eccentricity of this eccentric
being, and to understand why there were stringent orders never to disturb
her in that yellow room.
It had been a habit at Okehurst, as at one or two other English
manor-houses, to keep a certain amount of the clothes of each generation,
more particularly wedding dresses. A certain carved oaken press, of which
Mr. Oke once displayed the contents to me, was a perfect museum of
costumes, male and female, from the early years of the seventeenth to the
end of the eighteenth century--a thing to take away the breath of a
_bric-a-brac_ collector, an antiquary, or a _genre_ painter. Mr. Oke was
none of these, and therefore took but little interest in the collection,
save in so far as it interested his family feeling. Still he seemed well
acquainted with the contents of that press.
He was turning over the clothes for my benefit, when suddenly I noticed
that he frowned. I know not what impelled me to say, "By the way, have you
any dresses of that Mrs. Oke whom your wife resembles so much? Have you got
that particular white dress she was painted in, perhaps?"
Oke of Okehurst flushed very red.
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