‘Upon my word,’ Tom said aloud, as if to himself, rising to go, and flicking his boot carelessly with his riding-whip, ‘I admire her all the more when she’s in a temper. She’s one of your high-steppers, she is. She’s an uncommon fine girl, too—hanged if she isn’t—and, sooner or later, she’ll have to marry me.’ Nora swept out of the boudoir without another word, and walked with a stately tread into her own room. But before she got there, the ludicrous side of the thing had once more overcome her, and she flung herself on a couch in uncontrollable fits of childish laughter. ‘Oh, Aunt Clemmy,’ she cried, ‘bring me my tea in here, will you? I really think I shall die of laughing at Mr Tom there!’ CHAPTER XVI. For a few days, the Hawthorns had plenty of callers—but all gentlemen. Marian did not go down to receive them. Edward saw them by himself in the drawing-room, accepting their excuses with polite incredulity, and dismissing them as soon as possible by a resolutely quiet and taciturn demeanour. Such a singularly silent man as the new judge, everybody said, had never before been known in the district of Westmoreland. One afternoon, however, when the two Hawthorns were sitting out under the spreading mango-tree in the back-garden, forgetting their doubts and hesitations in a quiet chat, Thomas came out to inform them duly that two gentlemen and a lady were waiting to see them in the big bare drawing-room. Marian sighed a sigh of profound relief. ‘A lady at last,’ she said hopefully. ‘Perhaps, Edward, they’ve begun to find out, after all, that they’ve made some mistake or other. Can—can any wicked person, I wonder, have been spreading around some horrid report about me, that’s now discovered to be a mere falsehood?’ ‘It’s incomprehensible,’ Edward answered moodily. ‘The more I puzzle over it, the less I understand it. But as a lady has called at last, of course, darling, you’d better come in at once and see her.’ They walked together, full of curiosity, into the drawing-room. The two gentlemen rose simultaneously as they entered. To Marian’s surprise, it was Dr Whitaker and his father; and with them had come—a brown lady. Marian was unaffectedly glad to see their late travelling companion; but it was certainly a shock to her, unprejudiced as she was, that the very first and only woman who had called upon her in Trinidad should be a mulatto. However, she tried to bear her disappointment bravely, and sat down to do the honours as well as she was able to her unexpected visitors. ‘My daughtah!’ the elder brown man said ostentatiously, with an expansive wave of his greasy left hand towards the mulatto lady—‘Miss Euphemia Fowell-Buxton Duchess-of-Sutherland Whitaker.’ Marian acknowledged the introduction with a slight bow, and bit her lip. She stole a look at Dr Whitaker, and saw at once upon his face an unwonted expression of profound dejection and disappointment.