Mrs Keswick came to the table with a smiling face, and wearing a close-fitting white cap, which looked like a portion of her night gear, tied under her chin with broad, stiff strings.  In this she appeared to her host as far more hideous than when wearing her sun-bonnet.  Mr Brandon had arranged that two servants should wait upon the table, so that one of them should always be in the room, but in his supposition that the presence of a third person would have any effect upon the expression of Mrs Keswick’s fond regard, he was mistaken.  The meal had scarcely begun, when she looked around the room with wide-open eyes, and exclaimed:  “Robert, if we should conclude to remain here, I think we will have this room re-papered with some light-colored paper.  I like a light dining-room.  This is entirely too dark.”

The two servants, one of whom was our old friend, Peggy, actually stopped short in their duties at this remark; and as for Mr Brandon, his appetite immediately left him, to return no more during that meal.

He was obliged to make some answer to this speech, and so he briefly remarked that he had no desire to alter the appearance of his dining-room, and then hastened to change the conversation by making some inquiries about that interesting young woman, her niece, who, he had been informed, was not a married lady, as he had supposed her to be.

At this intelligence, Peggy dropped two spoons and a fork; she had never heard it before.

“The late Mrs Null,” said Mrs Keswick, “is a young woman who likes to cut her clothes after her own patterns.  They may be becoming to her when they are made up, or they may not be.  But I am inclined to think she has got a pretty good head on her shoulders, and perhaps she knows what suits her as well as any of us.  I can’t say it was easy to forgive the trick she played on me, her own aunt, and just the same, in fact, as her mother.  But Robert,” and as she said this the old lady laid down her knife and fork, and looked tenderly at Mr Brandon, “I have determined to forgive everybody, and to overlook everything, and I do this as much for your sake, dear Robert, as for my own.  It wouldn’t do for a couple of our age to be keeping up grudges against the young people for their ways of getting out of marriages or getting into them.  We will have my niece and her husband here sometimes, won’t we, Robert?”

Mr Brandon straightened himself and remarked:  “Mr Croft, whom I have heard your niece is to marry, will be quite welcome here, with his wife.”  Then, putting his napkin on the table, and pushing back his chair, he said:  “Now, madam, you must excuse me, for I have orders to give to some of my people which I had forgotten until this moment.  But do not let me interfere with your dinner.  Pray continue your meal.”

Never before had Mr Brandon been known to leave his dinner until he had finished it, and he was not at all accustomed to give such a poor reason for his actions as the one he gave now, but it was simply impossible for him to sit any longer at table, and have that old woman talk in that shocking manner before the servants.