Mr. Dosett was dignified at his office with the use of a room to himself, a small room looking out upon the river, in which he spent six hours on six days of the week in arranging the indexes of a voluminous library of manuscript letter-books. It was rarely indeed that he was disturbed by the presence of any visitor. When, therefore, his door was opened by one of the messengers, and he was informed that Lady Albury desired to see him, he was for the moment a good deal disturbed. No option, however, was given to him as to refusing admission to Lady Albury. She was in the room before the messenger had completed his announcement, and had seated herself in one of the two spare chairs which the room afforded as soon as the door was closed. "Mr. Dosett," she said, "I have taken the great liberty of calling to say a few words about your niece, Miss Ayala Dormer." When the lady was first announced, Mr. Dosett, in his confusion, had failed to connect the name which he had heard with that of the lady who had invited Ayala to her house. But now he recognised it, and knew who it was that had come to him. "You were kind enough," he said, "to invite my little girl to your house some weeks ago." "And now I have come to invite her again." Mr. Dosett was now more disturbed than ever. With what words was he to refuse the request which this kind but very grand lady was about to make? How could he explain to her all those details as to his own poverty, and as to Ayala's fate in having to share that poverty with him? How could he explain the unfitness of Ayala's temporary sojourn with people so wealthy and luxurious? And yet were he to yield in the least how could he face his wife on his return home to the Crescent? "You are very kind, Lady Albury," he said. "We particularly wish to have her about the end of the first week in November," said the lady. "Her friend Nina Baldoni will be there, and one or two others whom she knows. We shall try to be a little gay for a week or two." "I have no doubt it would be gay, and we at home are very dull." "Do you not think a little gaiety good for young people?" said her ladyship, using the very argument which poor Mr. Dosett had so often attempted to employ on Ayala's behalf. "Yes; a little gaiety," he said, as though deprecating the excessive amount of hilarity which he imagined to prevail at Stalham. "Of course you do," said Lady Albury. "Poor little girl! I have heard so much about her, and of all your goodness to her. Mrs. Dosett I know is another mother to her; but still a little country air could not but be beneficial. Do say that she shall come to us, Mr. Dosett."