Dear, great-souled Carlyle.  Such natural gushings forth; such true freshness; such real grandeur.  Rugged, if you will—­yes, undoubtedly sometimes rugged, and startling in a drawing-room, but magnificent.  Who was there now to put beside him?  Who was there to mention in the same breath?  Her father, than whom no one had had more flair, said:  “Thomas is immortal.”  And here was this generation, this generation of puniness, raising its little voice in doubts, or, still worse, not giving itself the trouble to raise it at all, not—­it was incredible, but it had been thus reported to her—­even reading him.  Mrs. Fisher did not read him either, but that was different.  She had read him; she had certainly read him.  Of course she had read him.  There was Teufelsdroeck—­she quite well remembered a tailor called Teufelsdroeck.  So like Carlyle to call him that.  Yes, she must have read him, though naturally details escaped her.

The gong sounded.  Lost in reminiscence Mrs. Fisher had forgotten time, and hastened to her bedroom to wash her hands and smoothe her hair.  She did not wish to be late and set a bad example, and perhaps find her seat at the head of the table taken.  One could put no trust in the manners of the younger generation; especially not in those of that Mrs. Wilkins.

She was, however, the first to arrive in the dining-room.  Francesca in a white apron stood ready with an enormous dish of smoking hot, glistening macaroni, but nobody was there to eat it.

Mrs. Fisher sat down, looking stern.  Lax, lax.

“Serve me,” she said to Francesca, who showed a disposition to wait for the others.

Francesca served her.  Of the party she liked Mrs. Fisher least, in fact she did not like her at all.  She was the only one of the four ladies who had not yet smiled.  True she was old, true she was unbeautiful, true she therefore had no reason to smile, but kind ladies smiled, reason or no.  They smiled, not because they were happy but because they wished to make happy.  This one of the four ladies could not then, Francesca decided, be kind; so she handed her the macaroni, being unable to hide any of her feelings, morosely.

It was very well cooked, but Mrs. Fisher had never cared for maccaroni, especially not this long, worm-shaped variety.  She found it difficult to eat—­slippery, wriggling off her fork, making her look, she felt, undignified when, having got it as she supposed into her mouth, ends of it yet hung out.  Always, too, when she ate it she was reminded of Mr. Fisher.  He had during their married life behaved very much like maccaroni.  He had slipped, he had wriggled, he had made her feel undignified, and when at last she had got him safe, as she thought, there had invariably been little bits of him that still, as it were, hung out.

Francesca from the sideboard watched Mrs. Fisher’s way with macaroni gloomily, and her gloom deepened when she saw her at last take her knife to it and chop it small.