Mrs. Graham-Shute was already looking at them with an unpromising stare. She had a hatred of shabbily-dressed people, the keener that it was only by a great effort that she herself escaped that category. She had been indignant when her husband stopped the landau to speak to this “person,” and now to have the “person” obtruded upon her notice, in clothes which did not belong to him, was an outrage to her dignity, which at once dispelled the good humour which is traditionally supposed to belong to fat people. If people must invite their humble friends, they should not ask them to meet guests of greater consideration. It was extremely awkward and unpleasant, as one didn’t know where to draw the line between too much civility, which made the humble friend “presume,” and too little, which might offend one’s host. In the case of Alfred Marrable, Mrs. Graham-Shute certainly did not err in the former manner. Her disdain of the poor man, who was just the sort of weak-minded person to be impressed by her foolish arrogance, had a crushing effect upon him; so, far from becoming loquacious on the subject of old times, the poor man could scarcely be prevailed upon to open his lips at all. The glare of the cold, fish-like eyes, turned full upon him at dinner--for she sat opposite to him--even took away the poor man’s appetite; and John Bradfield was able to congratulate himself that night that the evening had passed off (according to his views) so well. The next day was Christmas day, and Alfred Marrable, always under the watchful eyes of his careful old friend, began it beautifully. He went to church, was almost pathetically civil and attentive to the ladies, delighted to carry their prayer-books, and to render them such small services of a like kind as he could. At luncheon, by which time Mrs. Graham-Shute had grown sufficiently used to him to ignore him altogether, he thawed a little, and needed the warning eye of his host to restrain him from making appropriate Christmas allusions to old times over his glass of port. But it was at the Christmas dinner that evening that his discretion melted away like wax before the fire, and he made up for lost time and past reticence with a loquacity even more dangerous than John Bradfield had feared. He alluded to change of fortune, some for the better, some for the worse, when they had got as far as the turkey. When they reached the plum-pudding, he got so far as to remember old friends by the initials of their names; and he broke down altogether into amiable chatter about thirty years ago, at the cheese. John Bradfield frowned, but by this time frowns were thrown away upon Alfred. Nothing short of taking him by the shoulders and turning him out of the room would have checked the flow of his half-cheerful, half-sorrowful, wholly sentimental reminiscences.