Rather luckily, so Chris thought a little later, Mrs. Abercarne was not upstairs, for the girl thus had an opportunity of thinking the events of the afternoon over carefully before she saw her mother, and decided not to mention any of them. Poor Mrs. Abercarne had quite enough to worry her, not only in accommodating the housekeeping arrangements to Mrs. Graham-Shute’s erratic habits and projects, but in parrying that lady’s persistent attempts to cast slights upon her and her daughter. If now she were to hear, all in one breath, as it were, of her daughter’s encounter with the madman, of her quarrel with “that most objectionable young person,” Donald, and her refusal of the rich Mr. Bradfield’s attentions, Chris felt that her poor mother would spend a Christmas even less merry than she expected to do. So the girl kept her little secrets to herself, which proved easy enough to do, as the preparations for the _tableaux_ kept her fully employed, and away from her mother. The following day was a long, confused nightmare to Chris. The din of Mrs. Graham-Shute’s voice was in her ears all the morning, and until the time when the hastily-summoned guests began to arrive. They had been invited for four, with a promise of tea. This, not being within the jurisdiction of Mrs. Graham-Shute, duly came to hand. The _tableaux_ did not. So the guests “stood about,” cold, bored, and critical, and waited. They had assembled in the drawing-room, whence Mrs. Graham-Shute, at the last moment, had had most of the chairs removed to the barn, with a sudden and unnecessary spasm of fear that there would not be seats enough for the audience. Mr. Bradfield, in whose name the invitations had been issued, was “not at home,” in his study. Mrs. Abercarne, whom he desired to play the part of hostess, was completely overshadowed by Mrs. Graham-Shute, who not only occupied a good deal of space, and made her voice resound to the furthest extremities of the rooms, but who had a way of looking over the heads of the assembly as if she was counting her flock, which suggested to the meanest intelligence that she considered them all to be for the time being her property. Mrs. Abercarne, seeing that the message summoning the company to the barn tarried in its coming, ordered some chairs to be brought in from the dining-room, since people who are cold and shy and bored look more comfortable sitting than they do standing. Mrs. Graham-Shute countermanded the order. So the guests continued to stand, and to try to talk, and to wonder whether the fat and fussy lady was in her right mind. Even Mrs. Graham-Shute, happy as she was in the consciousness that she was doing “the right thing,” began to get rather “fidgety,” and to send messages to the performers to know whether they were ready. And Lilith’s answers, more frantically worded every time, were always to the effect that they were not.