“Oh! well!” and after a moment’s pause, “but you have never asked me one word about our dinner at the Pooles yesterday.”

“Did you go then?  I have made no enquiries, because I concluded you must have been obliged to give up the party.”

“Oh yes!  I went.  I was very well yesterday; nothing at all the matter with me till this morning.  It would have been strange if I had not gone.”

“I am very glad you were well enough, and I hope you had a pleasant party.”

“Nothing remarkable.  One always knows beforehand what the dinner will be, and who will be there; and it is so very uncomfortable not having a carriage of one’s own.  Mr and Mrs Musgrove took me, and we were so crowded!  They are both so very large, and take up so much room; and Mr Musgrove always sits forward.  So, there was I, crowded into the back seat with Henrietta and Louise; and I think it very likely that my illness to-day may be owing to it.”

A little further perseverance in patience and forced cheerfulness on Anne’s side produced nearly a cure on Mary’s.  She could soon sit upright on the sofa, and began to hope she might be able to leave it by dinner-time.  Then, forgetting to think of it, she was at the other end of the room, beautifying a nosegay; then, she ate her cold meat; and then she was well enough to propose a little walk.

“Where shall we go?” said she, when they were ready.  “I suppose you will not like to call at the Great House before they have been to see you?”

“I have not the smallest objection on that account,” replied Anne.  “I should never think of standing on such ceremony with people I know so well as Mrs and the Miss Musgroves.”

“Oh! but they ought to call upon you as soon as possible.  They ought to feel what is due to you as my sister.  However, we may as well go and sit with them a little while, and when we have that over, we can enjoy our walk.”

Anne had always thought such a style of intercourse highly imprudent; but she had ceased to endeavour to check it, from believing that, though there were on each side continual subjects of offence, neither family could now do without it.  To the Great House accordingly they went, to sit the full half hour in the old-fashioned square parlour, with a small carpet and shining floor, to which the present daughters of the house were gradually giving the proper air of confusion by a grand piano-forte and a harp, flower-stands and little tables placed in every direction.  Oh! could the originals of the portraits against the wainscot, could the gentlemen in brown velvet and the ladies in blue satin have seen what was going on, have been conscious of such an overthrow of all order and neatness!  The portraits themselves seemed to be staring in astonishment.