So the same afternoon, Lady Modyford had powdered her round, fat, little face, and put on her pretty coquettish French bonnet, and driven round in full state from Government House to Edward Hawthorn’s new bungalow in the Westmoreland valleys. As the carriage with its red-liveried black footmen drove up to the door, Marian’s heart sank once more within her: she knew it was the governor’s wife come to call; and she had a vague presentiment in her own mind that the fat little woman inside the carriage would send in her card out of formal politeness, and drive away at once without waiting to see her. But instead of that, Lady Modyford came up the steps with great demureness, and walked into the bare drawing-room, after Marian’s rather untidy and quite raw black waiting-maid; and the moment she saw Marian, she stepped up to her very impulsively, and held out both her hands, and kissed the poor young bride on either cheek with genuine tenderness. ‘My dear,’ she said, with a motherly tremor in her kind old voice, ‘you must forgive me for making myself quite at home with you at once, and not standing upon ceremony in any way; but I knew your mother years ago—she was just like you then—and I know what a lonely thing it is for a newly married girl to come out to a country like this, quite away from her own people; and I shall be so glad if you’ll take Sir Adalbert and me just as we are. We’re homely people, and we don’t live far away from you; and if you’ll run round and see me any time you feel lonely or are in want of anything, why, you know, of course, my dear, we shall be delighted to see you.’