The voice of the beadle.  By your leave there, gentlemen.  Make way for the Mayoress.  Way for the worshipful the Mayoress, my lords and gentlemen. [He comes in through the tower, in cocked hat and goldbraided overcoat, bearing the borough mace, and posts himself at the entrance].  By your leave, gentlemen, way for the worshipful the Mayoress.

Collins [moving back towards the wall] Mrs George, my lord.

Mrs George is every inch a Mayoress in point of stylish dressing; and she does it very well indeed.  There is nothing quiet about Mrs George; she is not afraid of colors, and knows how to make the most of them.  Not at all a lady in Lesbia’s use of the term as a class label, she proclaims herself to the first glance as the triumphant, pampered, wilful, intensely alive woman who has always been rich among poor people.  In a historical museum she would explain Edward the Fourth’s taste for shopkeepers’ wives.  Her age, which is certainly 40, and might be 50, is carried off by her vitality, her resilient figure, and her confident carriage.  So far, a remarkably well-preserved woman.  But her beauty is wrecked, like an ageless landscape ravaged by long and fierce war.  Her eyes are alive, arresting and haunting; and there is still a turn of delicate beauty and pride in her indomitable chin; but her cheeks are wasted and lined, her mouth writhen and piteous.  The whole face is a battlefield of the passions, quite deplorable until she speaks, when an alert sense of fun rejuvenates her in a moment, and makes her company irresistible.

All rise except Soames, who sits down.  Leo joins Reginald at the garden door.  Mrs Bridgenorth hurries to the tower to receive her guest, and gets as far as Soames’s chair when Mrs George appears.  Hotchkiss, apparently recognizing her, recoils in consternation to the study door at the furthest corner of the room from her.

Mrs George [coming straight to the Bishop with the ring in her hand] Here is your ring, my lord; and here am I. It’s your doing, remember:  not mine.

The bishop.  Good of you to come.

Mrs Bridgenorth.  How do you do, Mrs Collins?

Mrs George [going to her past the Bishop, and gazing intently at her] Are you his wife?

Mrs Bridgenorth.  The Bishop’s wife?  Yes.

Mrs George.  What a destiny!  And you look like any other woman!

Mrs Bridgenorth [introducing Lesbia] My sister, Miss Grantham.

Mrs George.  So strangely mixed up with the story of the General’s life?

The bishop.  You know the story of his life, then?

Mrs George.  Not all.  We reached the house before he brought it up to the present day.  But enough to know the part played in it by Miss Grantham.

Mrs Bridgenorth [introducing Leo] Mrs Reginald Bridgenorth.