By the luckiest chance in the world (so _she_ said) there was by this time a house to be let absolutely within sight of Wyngham House. It was an ugly brand-new dwelling, built of yellow brick, standing in a very small scrap of immature garden, on the west side of Wyngham House, and therefore a little way further from the town than Mr. Bradfield’s residence. It had been built by the local poet, a gentleman who turned out a large amount of verse, mostly very bad, and always very dull, some of which occasionally found its way into the dullest and heaviest of the old established magazines. Overweighted by the burden of his own celebrity (at least this was the construction put upon his action by the neighbours) he had built a high wall round his house and tiny garden, to shield himself from the public gaze; although nobody wanted to look at him. Then, suddenly tiring of his dwelling when he had finished spoiling it, he put up a board announcing that it was to let, just in time for it to be pounced upon by the fair Maude, who was charmed by the dignified seclusion offered by the high wall, and by its near neighbourhood to dear cousin John. Furthermore the house had what she described as a “magnificent entrance,” which meant that a great deal of the space which ought to have been utilised in enlarging the poor little dining-room, was wasted on a big draughty hall, in which the four winds found a charming playground from which to distribute themselves up and down and around into every corner of the house. There was also a good-sized drawing-room, which was to be the scene of certain functions which were to bring a breath of Bayswater into benighted Wyngham. Long before the harmless, necessary plumber was out of the house, long before the carpets were down or the new papers were dry, Mrs. Graham-Shute had resolved upon most of the details of a house-warming, which was to be remembered as an epoch in the local annals. In honour of the occasion, Lilith had fortunately discovered a talent for dramatic authorship, and had fashioned a play which was to be the chief feature of the evening’s entertainment. Having got as far as this, Mrs. Graham-Shute, long before the moving was accomplished, proceeded to send out invitations to all those people whose acquaintance she had made, or had not made, as the case might be, during her week’s stay at dear cousin John’s. The next thing to be done was to call upon the editor of _The Wyngham Observer_ (with which is incorporated _The Little Wosham Times_), to ask him to insert, under the heading of “A Distinguished Arrival,” an account of the proposed function which she had thoughtfully written out beforehand. But the editor had, as she afterwards expressed it, “no enterprise, no manners, no anything,” for he mildly informed the lady that if he inserted her contribution it must be paid for as an advertisement.