At last Mrs. Mountford felt that she could stay no longer. She rose up from her chair, and gathered her wools in one arm. ‘The girls will be coming in from their ride,’ she said. ‘I must really go.’ The girls had all the machinery of life at Mount in their hands; in other houses it is ‘the boys’ that are put forward as influencing everything. The engagements and occupations of the young people map out the day, and give it diversity, though the elder ones move the springs of all that is most important. It was generally when ‘the girls’ were busy in some special matter of their own that Mrs. Mountford came to ‘sit with’ her husband in the library, and furnished him with so much information. But their positions had been changed to-day. It was he who had been her informant, telling her about things more essential to be known than any of her gossip about Anne’s intentions or Rose’s habits. She lingered even as she walked across the floor, and dropped her little plaited sheaf of many colours and stooped to pick it up, inviting further confidence. But her husband did not respond. He let her go without taking any notice of her proceedings or asking any question as to her unusual reluctance to leave him. At last, when she had fairly turned her back upon him, and had her hand upon the handle of the door, his voice startled her, and made her turn round with anxious expectation. ‘By the way,’ he said, ‘I forgot to tell you: I have a letter to-day from Heathcote Mountford, offering a visit. I suppose he wants to spy out the nakedness of the land.’ ‘Heathcote Mountford!’ cried his wife, bewildered; then added, after a little interval, ‘I am sure he is quite welcome to come when he pleases--he or anyone. There is no nakedness in the land that we need fear.’ ‘He is coming next week,’ said Mr. Mountford. ‘Of course, as you perceive, I could not refuse.’ Mrs. Mountford paused at the door, with a great deal of visible interest and excitement. It was no small relief to her to find a legitimate reason for it. ‘Of course you could not refuse: why should you refuse? I shall be very glad to see him; and’--she added, after a momentary pause, which gave the words significance, ‘so will the girls.’