These reminiscences lasted until they reached the house and went together to Agatha’s room. Here Jane, having some orders to give in the household, had to leave them--reluctantly; for she was jealous lest Gertrude should get the start of her in the renewal of Agatha’s affection. She even tried to take her rival away with her; but in vain. Gertrude would not budge. “What a beautiful house and splendid place!” said Agatha when Jane was gone. “And what a nice fellow Sir Charles is! We used to laugh at Jane, but she can afford to laugh at the luckiest of us now. I always said she would blunder into the best of everything. Is it true that she married in her first season?” “Yes. And Sir Charles is a man of great culture. I cannot understand it. Her size is really beyond everything, and her manners are bad.” “Hm!” said Agatha with a wise air. “There was always something about Jane that attracted men. And she is more knave than fool. But she is certainly a great ass.” Gertrude looked serious, to imply that she had grown out of the habit of using or listening to such language. Agatha, stimulated by this, continued: “Here are you and I, who consider ourselves twice as presentable and conversable as she, two old maids.” Gertrude winced, and Agatha hastened to add: “Why, as for you, you are perfectly lovely! And she has asked us down expressly to marry us.” “She would not presume--” “Nonsense, my dear Gertrude. She thinks that we are a couple of fools who have mismanaged our own business, and that she, having managed so well for herself, can settle us in a jiffy. Come, did she not say to you, before I came, that it was time for me to be getting married?” “Well, she did. But--” “She said exactly the same thing to me about you when she invited me.” “I would leave her house this moment,” said Gertrude, “if I thought she dared meddle in my affairs. What is it to her whether I am married or not?” “Where have you been living all these years, if you do not know that the very first thing a woman wants to do when she has made a good match is to make ones for all her spinster friends. Jane does not mean any harm. She does it out of pure benevolence.” “I do not need Jane’s benevolence.” “Neither do I; but it doesn’t do any harm, and she is welcome to amuse herself by trotting out her male acquaintances for my approval. Hush! Here she comes.” Gertrude subsided. She could not quarrel with Lady Brandon without leaving the house, and she could not leave the house without returning to her home. But she privately resolved to discourage the attentions of Erskine, suspecting that instead of being in love with her as he pretended, he had merely been recommended by Jane to marry her.