Luckily, just as the situation was becoming unbearable, and her respectability on the verge of collapsing in the cause of peace, they stopped at the gate of The Elms, Raymond Avenue, Lewisham.  Bertie’s annoyance was swallowed up in the double anxiety of introducing her to his family and his family to her.  On both counts he felt a little gloomy, for he did not think much of his mother and sister and did not expect Joanna to think much of them.  At the same time there was no denying that Jo was and looked a good bit older than he, and his mother and sister were quite capable of thinking he was marrying her for her money.  She was looking rather worn and dragged this afternoon, after her unaccustomed railway journey—­sometimes you really wouldn’t take her for more than thirty, but to-day she was looking her full age.

“Mother—­Agatha—­this is Jo.”

Joanna swooped down on the old lady with a loud kiss.

“Pleased to meet you,” said Mrs. Hill in a subdued voice.  She was very short and small and frail-looking, and wore a cap—­for the same reason no doubt that she kept an aspidistra in the dining-room window, went to church at eleven o’clock on Sundays, and had given birth to Agatha and Albert.

Agatha was evidently within a year or two of her brother’s age, and she had his large, melting eyes, and his hair that sprang in a dark semicircle from a low forehead.  She was most elegantly dressed in a peek-a-boo blouse, hobble skirt, and high-heeled shoes.

“Pleased to meet you,” she said, and Joanna kissed her too.

“Is tea ready?” asked Bertie.

“It will be in a minute, dear—­I can hear Her getting it.”

They could all do that, but Bertie seemed annoyed that they should be kept waiting.

“You might have had it ready,” he said, “I expect you’re tired, Jo.”

“Oh, not so terrible, thanks,” said Joanna, who felt sorry for her future mother-in-law being asked to keep tea stewing in the pot against the uncertain arrival of travellers.  But, as it happened, she did feel rather tired, and was glad when the door was suddenly kicked open and a large tea-tray was brought in and set down violently on a side table.

“Cream and sugar?” said Mrs. Hill nervously.

“Yes, thank you,” said Joanna.  She felt a little disconcerted by this new household of which she found herself a member.  She wondered what Bertie’s mother and sister thought of his middle-aged bride.

For a time they all sat round in silence.  Joanna covertly surveyed the drawing-room.  It was not unlike the parlour at Ansdore, but everything looked cheaper—­they couldn’t have given more than ten pound for their carpet, and she knew those fire-irons—­six and eleven-three the set at the ironmongers.  These valuations helped to restore her self-confidence and support the inspection which Agatha was conducting on her side.  “Reckon the price of my clothes ud buy everything in this room,” she thought to herself.