“And Bragton is here.  The estate is not out of elbows.”

“My dear, my opinion is that we’ve made a mistake.  He’s not the sort of man I took him to be.  He’s as hard as a file.”

“Leave that to me, mammal”

“You are determined then?”

“I think I am.  At any rate let me look about me.  Don’t give him an opportunity of breaking off till I have made up my mind.  I can always break off if I like it.  No one in London has heard of the engagement yet.  Just leave me alone for this week to see what I think about it” Then Lady Augustus threw herself back in her chair and went to sleep, or pretended to do so.

A little after half-past seven she and her daughter, dressed for dinner, went down to the library together.  The other guests were assembled there, and Mrs. Morton was already plainly expressing her anger at the tardiness of her son’s guests.  The Senator had got hold of Mr. Mainwaring and was asking pressing questions as to church patronage,—­a subject not very agreeable to the rector of St. John’s, as his living had been bought for him with his wife’s money during the incumbency of an old gentleman of seventy-eight.  Mr. Cooper, who was himself nearly that age and who was vicar of Mallingham, a parish which ran into Dillsborough and comprehended a part of its population, was listening to these queries with awe, and perhaps with some little gratification, as he had been presented to his living by the bishop after a curacy of many years.  “This kind of things, I believe, can be bought and sold in the market,” said the Senator, speaking every word with absolute distinctness.  But as he paused for an answer the two ladies came in and the conversation was changed.  Both the clergymen were introduced to Lady Augustus and her daughter, and Mr. Mainwaring at once took refuge under the shadow of the ladies’ title.

Arabella did not sit down, so that Morton had an opportunity of standing near to his love.  “I suppose you are very tired,” he said.

“Not in the least.”  She smiled her sweetest as she answered him,—­ but yet it was not very sweet.  “Of course we were tired and cross when we got out of the train.  People always are; aren’t they?”

“Perhaps ladies are.”

“We were.  But all that about the carriages, Mr. Morton, wasn’t my doing.  Mamma had been talking to me so much that I didn’t know whether I was on my head or my heels.  It was very good of you to come and meet us, and I ought to have been more gracious.”  In this way she made her peace, and as she was quite in earnest,—­doing a portion of the hard work of her life,—­she continued to smile as sweetly as she could.  Perhaps he liked it;—­but any man endowed with that power of appreciation which we call sympathy, would have felt it to be as cold as though it had come from a figure on a glass window.