"Henrietta!" pitifully appealed the sister, "you know dear Arnold is not a fool. He never did a foolish thing in his life, except, perhaps, in making this unfortunate marriage. And she may improve. Any body ought to improve who had the advantage of living constantly with dear Arnold." Miss Gascoigne, always on the watch for affronts, turning sharply round, but there was not a shadow of satire in her friend's simplicity. "My dear Maria, you are the greatest--" But what Miss Grey was remained among the few bitter speeches that Miss Gascoigne left unsaid, for at that moment the heavy oak door was thrown wide open, and Barker, the butler (time-honored institution of Saint Bede's, who thought himself one of its strongest pillars of support), repeated, in his sonorous voice, "The master and Mrs. Grey." Thus announced--suddenly and formally, like a stranger, in her own house--Christian came home. The two maiden aunts rose ceremoniously. Either their politeness sprang from their natural habit of good-breeding, or it was wrung from them by extreme surprise. The apparition before them--tall, graceful, and dignified--could by no means be mistaken for any thing but a lady--such a lady as Avonsbridge, with all its aristocracy of birth and condition, rarely produced. She would have been the same even if attired in hodden gray, but now she was well-dressed in silks and furs. Dr. Grey had smiled at the modest trousseau, and soon settled every thing by saying, "My wife must wear so and so." In this rich clothing, which set off her fair large Saxon beauty to the utmost advantage, Christian quite dazzled the eyes of the two ladies who had so persistently called her "that young woman." Any person with eyes at all could see that, except for the difference in age, there was not the slightest incongruity between (to follow Barker's pompous announcement) "the master and Mrs. Grey." Dr. Grey's personal introduction was brief enough: "Christian, these are my sisters. This is Maria, and this is Henrietta--Miss Gascoigne." Christian bowed--a little stately, perhaps--and then held out her hand, which, after a hesitating glance at Miss Gascoigne, was accepted timidly by Miss Grey. "I couldn't help it, my dear" she afterward pleaded, in answer to a severe scolding; "she quite took me by surprise."