A tall, stately, handsome woman, slow and quiet in movement, dressed in velvet and furs, came deliberately into the room. The magnificent, imposing Lady Kellynch had that quiet dignity and natural ease and distinction sometimes seen in the widow of a knight, but unknown amongst the old aristocracy. It was generally supposed, or, at all events, stated, that the late Sir Percy Kellynch had been knighted by mistake for somebody else; through a muddle owing to somebody's deafness. The result was the same, since his demise left her with a handle to her name, but no one to turn it (to quote the _mot_ of a well-known wit), and she looked, at the very least, like a peeress in her own right. Indeed, she was the incarnation of what the romantic lower middle classes imagine a great lady;--a dressmaker's ideal of a duchess. She had the same high forehead, without much thought behind it, so noticeable in her son Percy, and the same clearly cut features; and it was true, as Bertha had said, that she firmly believed the whole of the world, of the slightest importance, consisted of her late husband, herself, her married son Percy, and her boy Clifford at school; the rest of the universe was merely an audience, or a background, for this unique family. * * * * * If anyone spoke of a European crisis that was interesting the general public, she would reply by saying what Percy thought about it; if a more frivolous subject (such as _You Shut Up_, or some other popular Revue) was mentioned, she would answer, reassuringly, that she knew Clifford had a picture post-card of one of the performers, implying thereby that it _must_ be all right. She loved Bertha mildly, and with reservations, because Percy loved her, and because Bertha wished her to; but she really thought it would have been more suitable if Bertha had been a little more colourless, a little plainer, a little stupider and more ordinary; not that her attractions would ever cause any trouble to Percy, but because it seemed as if a son of hers ought to have a wife to throw him up more. Percy, however, had no idea that Bertha was anything but a good foil to him, intellectually--and, as I have said, he regarded her (or believed he regarded her) a good deal like a pet canary.