The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about--rattling on like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away _bon mots_ and witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a “wonderfully clever woman,”--the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane beauty. Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him. In quitting the dining-room--where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs. Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed till she was fairly tired out--he said, in a half whisper: “Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth.” In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was another sister--in truth, the Miss Harper of the family--Mary, its head and housekeeper, being properly only “Miss Mary.” She noticed that as Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully, as if to inquire how much she knew--and anxiously, as though there were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing Elizabeth. Mrs. Harper felt her cheeks tingle nervously, but still she put her arm in her husband's, and said, “I should much like to go.” Mary sent for lights, and prepared to accompany them herself, the other two moving away into the drawing-room. Through the same sort of old-fashioned passages, but, as it seemed, to quite a different part of the house, Agatha went with her husband and his sister. The strangeness and gloom of the place, the doubt as to what sort of person she was going to see--for all she had heard was that from some great physical suffering Elizabeth never quitted her room--made the young girl feel timid, even afraid. Her hand trembled so that her husband perceived it. “Nay, you need not mind,” he whispered. “You will see nothing to pain you. We all dearly love her, and I do believe she is very happy--poor Elizabeth!”