The spicy scent of sweet-currant blossoms hung in the dewy air that wrapped one of the darkened village houses. From a syringa bush before another, as they moved on, a denser perfume stole out with the wild song of a cat-bird hidden in it; the music and the odour seemed braided together. The shadows of the trees cast by the electrics on the walks were so thick and black that they looked palpable; it seemed as if she could stoop down and lift them from the ground. A broad bath of moonlight washed one of the house fronts, and the white-painted clapboards looked wet with it. They talked of these things, of themselves, and of their own traits and peculiarities; and at her door they ended far from Mr. Peck and all the perplexities he had suggested. She had told Dr. Morrell of some things she had brought home with her, and had said she hoped he would find time to come and see them. It would have been stiff not to do it, and she believed she had done it in a very off-hand, business-like way. But she continued to question whether she had. XII. Miss Northwick called upon Annie during the week, with excuses for her delay and for coming alone. She seemed to have intentions of being polite; but she constantly betrayed her want of interest in Annie, and disappointed an expectation of refinement which her physical delicacy awakened. She asked her how she ever came to take up the Social Union, and answered for her that of course it had the attraction of the theatricals, and went on to talk of her sister's part in them. The relation of the Northwick family to the coming entertainment, and an impression of frail mottled wrists and high thin cheeks, and an absence of modelling under affluent drapery, was the main effect of Miss Northwick's visit. When Annie returned it, she met the younger sister, whom she found a great beauty. She seemed very cold, and of a _hauteur_ which she subdued with difficulty; but she was more consecutively polite than her sister, and Annie watched with fascination her turns of the head, her movements of leopard swiftness and elasticity, the changing lights of her complexion, the curves of her fine lips, the fluttering of her thin nostrils. A very new basket phaeton stood glittering at Annie's door when she got home, and Mrs. Wilmington put her head out of the open parlour window. “How d'ye do, Annie?” she drawled, in her tender voice. “Won't you come in? You see I'm in possession. I've just got my new phaeton, and I drove up at once to crush you with it. Isn't it a beauty?” “You're too late, Lyra,” said Annie. “I've just come from the Northwicks, and another crushing beauty has got in ahead of your phaeton.” “Oh, _poor_ Annie!” Lyra began to laugh with agreeable intelligence. “_Do_ come in and tell me about it!” “Why is that girl going to take part in the theatricals? She doesn't care to please any one, does she?”