“O no, I believe she is to surprise us all.  I met her just before I came out dragging a huge bag after her:  I wanted to help her, but she would not let me.”

“She turns us all round her finger,” said grandpapa.  “I never found the person who could resist Queen Bee, except grandmamma.  But I am glad you do not take after her, Henrietta, for one such grandchild is enough, and it is better for woman-kind to have leadable spirits than leading.”

“O, grandpapa!”

“That is a dissentient O. What does it mean?  Out with it.”

“Only that I was thinking about weakness; I beg your pardon, grandpapa.”

“Look here!” and Mr. Langford bent the slender cane in his hand (he disdained a stronger walking-stick) to its full extent of suppleness.  “Is this weak?”

“No, it is strong in energy,” said Henrietta, laughing, as the elastic cane sprang back to its former shape.

“Yet to a certain point you can bend it as far as you please.  Well, that should be the way with you:  be turned any way but the wrong, and let your own determination be only to keep upright.”

“But women are admired for influence.”

“Influence is a good thing in its way, but only of a good sort when it is unconscious.  At any rate, when you set to work to influence people, take care it is only with a view to their good, and not to your own personal wishes, or influencing becomes a dangerous trade, especially for young ladies towards their elders.”

Grandpapa, who had only seen Henrietta carried about by Beatrice, grandmamma, or Fred, and willing to oblige them all, had little idea how applicable to her case was his general maxim, nor indeed did she at the moment take it to herself, although it was one day to return upon her.  It brought them to the neat cottage of the carpenter, with the thatched workshop behind, and the garden in front, which would have looked neat but for the melancholy aspect of the frost-bitten cabbages.

This was Henrietta’s first cottage visit, and she was all eagerness and interest, picturing to herself a venerable old man, almost as fine-looking as her grandfather, and as eloquent as old men in cottages always are in books; but she found it rather a disappointing meeting.  It was a very nice trim-looking daughter-in-law who opened the door, on Mr. Langford’s knock, and the room was neatness itself, but the old carpenter was not at all what she had imagined.  He was a little stooping old man, with a shaking head, and weak red eyes under a green shade, and did not seem to have anything to say beyond “Yes, sir,” and “Thank you, sir,” when Mr. Langford shouted into his deaf ears some of the “compliments of the season.”  Looking at the young lady, whom he evidently mistook for Beatrice, he hoped that Mr. and Mrs. Geoffrey were quite well.  His face lighted up a little for a moment when Mr. Langford told him this was Mr. Frederick’s daughter, but it was only for an instant, and in a somewhat querulous voice he asked if there was not a young gentleman too.