I ordered the carriage and set off, mother having declined to accompany me. Miss Mullins's address was at Highgate; she lived in a small, new-looking house, somewhere near the Archway. I daresay Jane saw me from the window, for I had scarcely run up the little path to her house, and had scarcely finished sounding the electric bell, before the door was opened by no less a person than herself. "Ah," she said, "I felt somehow that you would call; come in, Miss Wickham." Her manner was extremely cordial, there was not a trace of offence at the way in which we had both treated her the day before. She ushered me into a sort of little Berlin wool room, all looking as neat as a new pin. There was Berlin wool everywhere, on the centre-table, on the mantelpiece, on the little side-table. There were Berlin wool antimacassars and a Berlin wool screen, in which impossible birds disported themselves over impossible water, and there was a large waxwork arrangement of fruit and flowers in the centre of the mantelpiece, and there were six chairs, all with their backs decorously placed against the wall, and not a single easy chair. But the room was spick and span with cleanliness and brightness and the due effects of soap and water and furniture-polish. The little room even smelt clean. Miss Mullins motioned me to one of the hard chairs. "I must apologise for the absence of the rocking-chair," she said, "it is being mended, but I dare say being young you won't mind using that hard chair for a little." "Certainly not," I replied. "I observe that every one lounges dreadfully just now," she continued, "but I myself hate easy chairs, and as this is my own house I do not have them in it. The room is clean, but not according to your taste, eh?" "It is a nice room of its kind," I said, "but----" "You need not add any buts, I know quite well what you are thinking about," said Jane Mullins; then she stood right in front of me, facing me. "Won't you sit down?" I said. "No, thank you, I prefer standing. I only sit when I have a good deal on my mind. What is it you have come to say?" I wished she would help me, but she had evidently no intention of doing so. She stood there with her red face and her twinkling eyes, and her broad, good-humoured mouth, the very personification of homely strength, but she was not going to get me out of my difficulty. "Well," I said, stammering and colouring, "I have been thinking over your visit, and--and----" "Yes, go on." "Do you really mean it, Miss Mullins?" I said then. "Would you really like to join two such ignorant people as mother and me?"