Muriel brushed aside the subject of her looks.

“What made you settle in Priorsford?” she asked.

“Well, we came out first to stay at the Hydro—­you were away at school then—­and your father took a great fancy to the place.  He was making money fast, and we always had a thought of buying a place.  But there was nothing that just suited us.  We thought it would be too dull to be right out in the country, at the end of a long drive—­exclusive you know, but terribly dreary, and then your father said, ’Build a house to suit ourselves in Priorsford, and we’ll have shops and a station and everything quite near.’  His idea was to have a house as like a hydropathic as possible, and to call it The Towers.  ’A fine big red house, Aggie,’ he often said to me, ’with plenty of bow-windows and turrets and a hothouse off the drawing-room and a sweep of gravel in front and a lot of geraniums and those yellow flowers—­what d’you call ’em?—­and good lawns, and a flower garden and a kitchen garden and a garage, and what more d’you want?’ Well, well, he got them all, but he didn’t live long to enjoy them.  I think myself that having nothing to do but take his meals killed him.  I hear wheels!  That’ll be the Jowetts.  They’re always so punctual.  Am I all right?”

Muriel assured her that nothing was wrong or lacking, and they waited for the guests.

The door opened and a servant announced, “Mr. and Mrs. Jowett.”

Mrs. Jowett walked very slowly and delicately, and her husband pranced behind her.  It might have been expected that in their long walk together through life Mr. Jowett would have got accustomed to his wife’s deliberate entrances, but no—­it always seemed as if he were just on the point of giving her an impatient push from behind.

She was a gentle-looking woman with soft, white hair and a pink-and-white complexion—­the sort of woman one always associates with old lace.  In her youth it was said that she had played the harp, and one felt that the “grave, sweet melody” would have well become her.  She was dressed in pale shades of mauve, and had a finely finished look.  The Indian climate and curries had affected Mr. Jowett’s liver, and made his temper fiery, but his heart remained the sound, childlike thing it had always been.  He quarrelled with everybody (though never for long), but people in trouble gravitated to him naturally, and no one had ever asked him anything in reason and been refused; children loved him.

Mr. Jackson, the Episcopalian clergyman, followed hard behind the Jowetts, and was immediately engaged in an argument with Mr. Jowett as to whether or not choral communion, which had recently been started and which Mr. Jowett resented, as he resented all new things, should be continued.

“Ridiculous!” he shouted—­“utterly ridiculous!  You will drive the people from the church, sir.”

Then Mr. Elliot arrived.  Mrs. Duff-Whalley greeted him impressively, and dinner was announced.