"Do you _really_, my dear Jane, expect him here the day after to-morrow?" "He said he should be detained only a day or two in town." Old Lady Alice shook her incredulous head, looking straight before her. "I don't think he can have said that, Jane, for he wrote to a friend of mine, the day before yesterday, mentioning that he should be detained by business at least a week." "Oh! did he?" "Yes, and Jekyl Marlowe, I dare say, thinks he will be kept there _longer_." "I should fancy _I_ am a better opinion, rather, upon that point, than Sir Jekyl Marlowe," said Lady Jane, loftily, and perhaps a little angrily. The old lady, with closed lips, at this made a little nod, which might mean anything. "And I can't conceive how it can concern Sir Jekyl, or even you, Lady Alice, what business my husband may have in town." It was odd how sharp they were growing upon this point. "Well, Sir Jekyl's another thing; but _me_, of course, it does concern, because I shall have to give him up his room again when he returns." "What room?" inquired Lady Jane, honestly puzzled. "_This_ room," answered the old lady, like one conscious that she drops, with the word, a gage of battle. "But this is _my_ room." "You don't use it, Lady Jane. _I_ wish to occupy it. I shall, of course, give it up on your husband's return; in the meantime I deprive you of nothing by taking it. Do I?" "That's not the question, Lady Alice. It is _my_ room--it is _my dressing_-room--and I don't mean to give it up to _any_ one. You are the last person on earth who would allow _me_ to take such a liberty with _you_. I don't _understand_ it." "Don't be excited, my dear Jenny," said Lady Alice--an exhortation sometimes a little inconsistently administered by members of her admirable sex when they are themselves most exciting. "I'm not in the least excited, Lady Alice; but I've had a note from you," said Lady Jane, in rather a choking key. "You have," acquiesced her senior. "And I connect your extraordinary intrusion here, with it." Lady Alice nodded. "I do, and--and I'm right. You mean to insult me. It is a shame--an _outrage_. What do you mean, madam?" "I'd have you to remember, Jane Chetwynd (the altercation obliterated her newly-acquired name of Lennox), that I am your relation and your senior." "Yes, you're my cousin, and my senior by fifty years; but an old woman may be very impertinent to a young one." "_Compose_ yourself, if you please, _compose_ yourself," said Lady Alice, in the same philosophic vein, but with colour a little heightened. "I don't know what you mean--you're a disgraceful old woman. I'll complain to my husband, and I'll tell Sir Jekyl Marlowe. Either you or I must leave this house to-night," declaimed Lady Jane, with a most beautiful blush, and eyes flashing lurid lightnings. "You forget yourself, my dear," said the old lady, rising grimly and confronting her.