There is nothing perfect in this world. How different, how very different, she had expected it all to be! She had expected perhaps that Harry himself would be a little gratified, that he would be touched by the faith in him of his little sister and her determination to find him. Lydia had herself forgotten that this determination had fallen much into the background in her recent wanderings. She thought her mind had always been full of it, and that this was the recompense of her devotion. She was hurt and wounded. Though she was Harry’s sister, and though she had brought him a fortune in her hand, she was still a stranger in Harry’s house, and his wife defied her. She could have cried this time in sheer mortification and injured feeling. “I will let them know that you are here,” she said with as much stateliness as she could muster. “I have done all that I suppose is in my power. I will not intrude upon anyone.” What a dreadful thing it is to be a woman and have that weakness of crying when you are hurt! Liddy kept her tears in her eyes only by main force, and could not altogether succeed in subduing the tremor in her voice. At this moment, however, the door opened, and the servant appeared, introducing Lionel, who stared when he saw the party thus assembled. Lionel was not in the best of tempers. He had been making inquiries as best he could, and he had found all Lydia’s guesses confirmed. But he had gone back to find that she had stolen a march upon him, and he was exceedingly cross, so cross that he was sometimes very angry with, and at other times very sorry for, himself. When he had made his bow to Rita, and stared with a gloomy countenance at her husband, he turned to Lydia with suppressed passion. “My mother has sent me for you,” he said. “She wishes you to remember that everything must be ready early to be sent down to the steamboat. Time and tide will wait for no man, you know.” This was said with a little smile, as if he were beginning to perceive, and wanted at least to hide from the others, the vexation in his tone.