I said I was sure that wasn’t true, as he was going the other way.  So he said that he had only been going that way to give his horse a little exercise, and that he intended to go in at the other gate.

I said I was sure that wasn’t true either, as there was no way round that way, unless one jumped the park palings.  So he said that was what he had intended to do.  Just then we came to the turnstile of the right-of-way, so I slipped through and called out, “Then I won’t keep you from your exercise,” and walked on as fast as I could.

[Sidenote:  Lady Farrington’s Nap]

What do you think he did, Mamma?  Simply got on his horse, and jumped those palings there and then!  I can’t think how he wasn’t killed.  There was almost no take-off, and the fence is so high.  However, there he was, and I could not get away again, because, if I had run, the horse could easily have kept up with me.  But I only said “Yes” and “No” all the way to the house, so he could not have enjoyed it much.  We went straight to the drawing-room, where tea was almost up, and there was Lady Farrington alone—­still asleep, and her cap had fallen right back, and all the bald was showing; and just then a carriage drove up to the door, and we heard visitors and the footsteps in the hall.  I had just time to cry to Lord Valmond, “Keep them back while I wake her!” and then I rushed to Lady Farrington, and shouted in her ear, “Visitors! and—­and—­your cap is a little crooked!” “Eh! what?” she screamed, and her teeth as nearly as possible jumped on to the carpet.  She simply flew to the mirror, but, as you know, it is away so high up she couldn’t see, so she made frantic efforts with her hands, and just got it to cover the bald, in a rakish, one-sided way, when the whole lot streamed into the room.  Lord Valmond looked awfully uncomfortable.  Goodness knows what he had said to them to keep them back!  Anyway, Harvey announced “Mrs. and the Misses Clarke,” and a thin, very high-nosed person, followed by two buffish girls, came forward.  Lady Farrington said, “How d’ye do?” as well as she could.  They were some friends of hers and Aunt Maria’s, who are staying with the Morverns, I gathered from their conversation.  They must have thought she had been on a spree since last they met!  I could hardly behave for laughing, and did not dare to look at Lord Valmond.

They had not been there more than five minutes when another carriage arrived, and two other ladies were announced.  “The Misses Clark!” The other Clarkes glared like tigers, and Lady Farrington lowered her chin and eyelashes at them (she has just the same manners as the people at Nazeby, although she is such a frump—­it is because she is an earl’s daughter, I suppose), and she called out to Harvey at the top of her voice, “Let Lady Worden be told at once there are visitors.”  The poor new things looked so uncomfortable, that I felt, as I was Aunt Maria’s niece, I at least must be polite to them; so I asked them to sit down, and we talked.  They were jolly, fat, vulgar souls, who have taken the Ortons’ place they told me, and this was their return visit, as the Ortons had asked Aunt Maria to call.  They were quite old maids, past thirty, with such funny, grand, best smart Sunday-go-to-meeting looking clothes on.