Then began the first of the poor lady’s difficulties. Of course she sent an invitation to dear cousin John. Equally, of course, she sent none to the housekeeper or the housekeeper’s daughter. Then she received a blunt note from Mr. Bradfield, informing her that unless Mrs. and Miss Abercarne came too, he shouldn’t come. Remonstrances followed, but were unavailing; then Mrs. Graham-Shute made a feeble stand; but the thought of what life would be at Wyngham without the countenance of the Great Man prevailed, and Mrs. and Miss Abercarne got their invitation, which Mr. Bradfield then put pressure on them to accept. What a frantic state of excitement pervaded “The Cottage” on the day of the “function!” What skirmishes there were among the performers! What rushes into the town on the part of the younger members of the family for a pound of sweet biscuits, a packet of candles, sixpennyworth of daffodils, and two syphons of lemonade! Not to speak of a running stream of messengers to cousin John’s, with pressing requests for the loan of a dozen chairs, a bottle of whisky and a tea-tray! As Mrs. Graham-Shute feelingly said, “It was quite lucky, as it happened, those wretched Abercarnes _had_ been invited, you know!” And so indeed it was. But when at last the evening came, Mrs. Graham-Shute felt that her exertions had met with their reward, for there was not a space sufficient for the accommodation of one person which did not hold two. This was the very height of enjoyment to the good lady, who received each guest with a fixed, galvanic smile, and said she was “_so_ delighted that you could come, you know,” the while she looked over the shoulder of the guest whose hand she held, too obviously occupied in counting the number of people who pressed in behind. It was indeed, as she afterwards said, a most successful function. Number of guests, eighty--seats for thirty-five. Sandwiches for five-and-twenty; tea for all those enterprising and muscular enough to make their way into the dining-room, where Rose, feeble and frightened, drifted round the tea-table rather than presided at it. There was some delay before the entertainment of the evening began; this is inevitable when you have to wait until the last guest has passed safely in before you can set your stage. By-the-bye, there was no stage proper, a space being railed off merely from the hall-door to about half-way up the hall, so that it was exceedingly disconcerting when the two Misses Blake, elderly and slow both of movement and understanding, knocked at the door at the most thrilling moment of the drama, and had to be let in right between the villain and the lady he was trying to murder. To avoid a second _contretemps_ of the same kind, one of the younger children was told off to stand in the cold outside, to show late comers in by the back door.