Nobody seeing the meeting on the platform would have imagined that Mr. Morton and Miss Trefoil were lovers,—­and as for Lady Augustus it would have been thought that she was in some special degree offended with the gentleman who had come to meet her.  She just gave him the tip of her fingers and then turned away to her maid and called for the porters and made herself particular and disagreeable.  Arabella vouchsafed a cold smile, but then her smiles were always cold.  After that she stood still and shivered.  “Are you cold?” asked Morton.  She shook her head and shivered again.  “Perhaps you are tired?” Then she nodded her head.  When her maid came to her in some trouble about the luggage, she begged that she “might not be bothered;” saying that no doubt her mother knew all about it.  “Can I do anything?” asked Morton.  “Nothing at all I should think,” said Miss Trefoil.  In the meantime old Mrs. Morton was standing by as black as thunder—­for the Trefoil ladies had hardly noticed her.

The luggage turned up all right at last,—­as luggage always does, and was stowed away in the cart.  Then came the carriage arrangement.  Morton had intended that the two elder ladies should go together with one of the maids, and that he should put his love into the other, which having a seat behind could accommodate the second girl without disturbing them in the carriage.  But Lady Augustus had made some exception to this and had begged that her daughter might be seated with herself.  It was a point which Morton could not contest out there among the porters and drivers, so that at last he and his grandmother had the phaeton together with the two maids in the rumble.  “I never saw such manners in all my life,” said the Honourable Mrs. Morton, almost bursting with passion.

“They are cold and tired, ma’am.”

“No lady should be too cold or too tired to conduct herself with propriety.  No real lady is ever so.”

“The place is strange to them, you know.”

“I hope with all my heart that it may never be otherwise than strange to them.”

When they arrived at the house the strangers were carried into the library and tea was of course brought to them.  The American Senator was there, but the greetings were very cold.  Mrs. Morton took her place and offered her hospitality in the most frigid manner.  There had not been the smallest spark of love’s flame shown as yet, nor did the girl as she sat sipping her tea seem to think that any such spark was wanted.  Morton did get a seat beside her and managed to take away her muff and one of her shawls, but she gave them to him almost as she might have done to a servant.  She smiled indeed, but she smiled as some women smile at everybody who has any intercourse with them.  “I think perhaps Mrs. Morton will let us go up-stairs,” said Lady Augustus.  Mrs. Morton immediately rang the bell and prepared to precede the ladies to their chambers.  Let them be as insolent as they would she would do what she conceived to be her duty.  Then Lady Augustus stalked out of the room and her daughter swum after her.  “They don’t seem to be quite the same as they were in Washington,” said the Senator.