Mrs. Dean could never have seemed to anyone a large woman, but to Jeremy she had always been a terror. She was thick and hard, like a wall, and wore the kind of silken clothes, that rustled--like the whispering of a whole meeting of frightened clergymen's wives--as she moved. She had a hard, condemnatory voice, and she spoke as though she were addressing an assembly; but, worst of all, she had black, beetling eyebrows, and these frightened Jeremy into fits. He did not, of course, know that the poor lady suffered continually from nervous headaches. He suddenly heard that voice in his ear: “Good morning, Jeremy, and where are you off to so early?” Mrs. Dean was never so awful as when she was jolly, and Jeremy, caught up by the eyebrows as though they had been hooks and hung thus in mid-air for all the street to laugh at, nearly lost his command of his natural tongue. He found his voice just in time: “To Ponting's,” he said. “All alone? Ah, no, I see you have your little dog. Nice little dog. And how's your mother?” “She's quite well, thank you.” “That's right--that's right. We haven't seen you lately. You must come up to tea with your sisters. I'm afraid you won't find Ernest, he's gone back to school--but I dare say you're not too big to play with little girls.” Jeremy felt some triumph at his heart. “I'm going to school to-morrow,” he said. But if he expected Mrs. Dean to be pitiful at this statement he was greatly mistaken. “Are you, indeed? Such a pity you couldn't have gone with Ernest--but he'd be senior to you, of course... Good-bye. Good-bye. Give my love to your mother,” and she pounded her way along. “She's a beastly woman anyway” thought Jeremy. “I wish I'd found something to say to her. I wonder whether she knows I knocked Ernest down in the summer and trod on him?”