‘It’s a great shame my coming in this way,’ said John, ’and letting all the cold air in upon you.’

‘We shall survive it,’ said Mrs Dale.  ’I suppose you have just come down from my brother-in-law?’

’No; I have not seen the squire as yet.  I will do so before I go back, of course.  But it seemed such a commonplace sort of thing to go round by the village.’

’We are very glad to see you, by whatever way you came;—­are we not, mamma?’ said Lily.

’I’m not so sure of that.  We were only saying yesterday that as you had been in the country a fortnight without coming to us, we did not think we would be at home when you did come.’

‘But I have caught you, you see,’ said Johnny.

And so they went on, chatting of old times and of mutual friends very comfortably for full an hour.  And there was some serious conversation about Grace’s father and his affairs, and John declared his opinion that Mr Crawley should go to his uncle, Thomas Toogood, not at all knowing that at that time Mr Crawley himself had come to the same opinion.  And John gave them an elaborate description of Sir Raffle Buffle, standing up with his back to the fire with his hat on his head, and speaking with a loud harsh voice, to show them the way in which he declared that that gentleman received his inferiors; and then bowing and scraping and rubbing his hands together and simpering with would-be softness—­declared that after that fashion Sir Raffle received his superiors.  And they were very merry—­so that no one would have thought that Johnny was a despondent lover, now bent on throwing the dice for his last stake; or that Lily was aware that she was in the presence of one lover, and that she was like to fall on the ground between two stools—­having two lovers, neither of whom could serve her turn.

‘How can you consent to serve him if he’s such a man as that?’ said Lily, speaking of Sir Raffle.

’I do not serve him.  I serve the Queen—­or rather the public.  I don’t take his wages, and he does not play his tricks with me.  He knows that he can’t.  He has tried it, and failed.  And he only keeps me where I am because I’ve had some money left me.  He thinks it fine to have a private secretary with a fortune.  I know that he tells people all manner of lies about it, making it out to be five times as much as it is.  Dear old Huffle Snuffle.  He is such an ass; and yet he’s had wit enough to get to the top of the tree, and to keep himself there.  He began the world without a penny.  Now he has got a handle to his name, and he’ll live in clover all his life.  It’s very odd, isn’t it, Mrs Dale?’

‘I suppose he does his work?’

’When men get so high as that, there’s no knowing whether they work or whether they don’t.  There isn’t much left for them to do, as far as I can see.  They have to look beautiful, and frighten the young ones.’

‘And does Sir Raffle look beautiful?’ Lily asked.