It was a delight to Mrs. Blather to see Clytie in this aspect. She could talk to her now on common ground; Clytie had become an ordinary sensible woman, who could discuss the things that fill the ordinary sensible woman's life: housemaids, fancywork, and the price of fish. Mrs. Blather knew that Hammerdyke was fairly well off, but she thought it her duty to give Clytie many valuable hints as to household expenditure, to which Clytie listened with suave distraction. She also gave her recipes for cooking, and the washing of lace, and infallible methods for removing wine stains from tablecloths; also neat little formulas for the management of a husband. “But yours is simply perfect,” she added, with reference to this last. “Oh, Clytie, you are a lucky girl!” To Clytie there was something pathetically humorous in the aspect she presented to her sisters; in finding herself, for the first time in her life, perfect in their eyes; in their changed relations. It was amusing to be the lady of the house, and to make plans for Gracie and Janet's entertainment. She brightened under the sense of it, and though many a misconception on their part caused her a sharp twinge of pain, she allowed them to purr on contentedly, taking a small measure of enjoyment from the comfort thereof. Besides, she felt that it would not last long. Their stay was limited to three days. A week of it would have been intolerable. For this reason she declined to accompany them back to Durdleham. At first Mrs. Blather was rather hurt at her refusal; but Clytie gently smoothed over the matter, tactfully avoiding to give specific reasons. Although Thornton was amenity itself in his intercourse with Clytie when they met in her sisters' presence, in their private relations he showed a certain soreness--the result of the process of understanding. She tried to heal this, to win back from him, if not love, at least gentleness and courtesy. “I must thank you, Thornton, for being so nice to my sisters,” she said once. “I suppose I know how to behave myself in my own house,” he replied coldly, and Clytie retired, and listened, with an ache in her heart, to Mrs. Blather's epithalamion.