“If you promise not to let his thoughtlessness distress you, my love, I promise not to speak to him about it. Do you agree to that bargain? If you do, give me a kiss.” Madonna only paused to repress a sigh that was just stealing from her, before she gave the required pledge. Her cheeks did not recover their color, nor her lips the smile that had been playing on them earlier in the evening; but she arranged Mrs. Blyth’s pillow even more carefully than usual, before she left the couch, and went away to perform as neatly and prettily as ever, her own little household duty of making the tea. Zack, entirely unconscious of having given pain to one lady and cause of anger to another, had got on to his second muffin, and had changed his accompanying song from “Rule Britannia” to the “Lass o’ Gowrie,” when the hollow, ringing sound of rapidly-running wheels penetrated into the room from the frosty road outside; advancing nearer and nearer, and then suddenly ceasing opposite Mr. Blyth’s own door. “Dear me!--surely that’s at our gate,” exclaimed Valentine; “who can be coming to see us so late, on such a cold night as this? And in a carriage, too!” “It’s a cab, by the rattling of the wheels, and it brings us the ‘Lass o’ Gowrie,’” sang Zack, combining the original text of his song, and the suggestion of a possible visitor, in his concluding words. “Do leave off singing nonsense out of tune, and let us listen when the door opens,” said Mrs. Blyth, glad to seize the slightest opportunity of administering the smallest reproof to Zack. “Suppose it should be Mr. Gimble, come to deal at last for that picture of mine that he has talked of buying so long,” exclaimed Valentine. “Suppose it should be my father!” cried Zack, suddenly turning round on his knees with a very blank face. “Or that infernal old Yollop, with his gooseberry eyes and his hands full of tracts. They’re both of them quite equal to coming after me and spoiling my pleasure here, just as they spoil it everywhere else.” “Hush!” said Mrs. Blyth. “The visitor has come in, whoever it is. It can’t be Mr. Gimble, Valentine; he always runs up two stairs at a time.” “And this is one of the heavy-weights. Not an ounce less than sixteen stone, I should say, by the step,” remarked Zack, letting his muffin burn while he listened. “It can’t be that tiresome old Lady Brambledown come to worry you again about altering her picture,” said Mrs. Blyth. “Stop! surely it isn’t--” began Valentine. But before he could say another word, the door opened; and, to the utter amazement of everybody but the poor girl whose ear no voice could reach, the servant announced: “MRS. PECKOVER.” CHAPTER XI. THE BREWING OF THE STORM.