Then Joan sought her husband again. “Look at them,” she said, “all sitting in a corner with this strange man, as if they were above the rest of us: as if it was my lady Countess and her party from the Castle looking at the poor people’s amusements. I will never ask these Pilgrims again.” “My dear, my dear,” said Philip Selby, “they are very good sort of people; and if they have a strange man with them that knows nobody, in civility what can they do?” “Then in civility it’s your part to make him know somebody. Are you not the master of the house? Phil, you are lazy; you are not doing your duty,” Joan said, giving him a little push towards the corner in which the Pilgrims were enthroned. “If there is one thing I cannot put up with it is a knot of people in a company making their observations.” She was quite excited by the Pilgrims and their guest--“for he is their guest, and not mine, though it’s in my house,” Joan said to herself. But alas for her consistency! Next time that she disengaged herself from the lesser crowd round the card-table, Joan saw a sight which displeased and satisfied her at the same time. The group of the Pilgrims had broken up; that is to say, “the strange man” had been led or had strayed away, and Amy and Tiny, having no longer anyone to take care of, and describe the company to, had sought refuge at the card-table, and were much merrier, if not so fine, as in their former position. That was all very well; but, on the other hand, there was Lydia, seated demurely in a chair apart, with Raaf Selby standing on one side of her like a thunder-cloud, and on the other, talking and making himself very agreeable, the Pilgrims’ “strange young man.” “Raaf,” said Joan, promptly, “you’re as bad as Phil; you’re taking no trouble. How is the game to go on without you to look after it, when it’s well known that you are far the best player here?” “I have been playing all the evening. I think I may be permitted a little rest,” Raaf said, with a gloomy countenance. He was older and shorter than the strange young man, and not so tall, and there was a something about this personage which was above the level of young Selby. He could not tell what it was. He himself had more ornaments, he had a finer head of hair, and more shirt-front, but yet there was something. Lydia was replying very gravely to what the stranger said to her, but she gave him her whole attention, and the other girls had given evidence that they saw something in this new comer which was not in their familiar hero. He felt crestfallen, and he felt angry. He was not in a humour to be ordered about by Joan. “Then sing us one of your songs,” Mrs. Selby said. “Things are going a bit slow; I don’t know what is the matter: or perhaps it’s only me that’s the matter. But I think things are going a bit slow.” “That’s my opinion, too,” Raaf said; “but I don’t think it’s my fault.”