She entered without much difficulty, and still unrecognised, in the perpetual _levée_ held inside and overflowing to the door. When she inquired of a busy maid-servant if she could speak with Madam Sundon, she was pretty sure of a gracious answer, for Madam Sundon could not afford to dismiss any petitioner unheard during these days. But the house was so full, and the rooms so much occupied, that Lady Bell was detained for a time in the passage, and then told that she must be taken to wait in Madam Sundon’s bedroom, till madam could spare a moment. In making her way through the throng, Lady Bell found much the same noisy flushed supporters whom she had left behind. One man was vociferating fierce abuse; but not of Sundon—of Trevor. “The ruffianly old tyrant,” the orator called her husband, and she heard the sentence with a thrill of antagonism which she had never expected to feel. Just so, no doubt, she had railed at her husband in set phrase, but she seemed first to realise vividly, at this moment, that he was her husband; his credit was her credit, and with him, as a result beyond recall, whatever her personal feelings, she must rise or fall. Mrs. Sundon’s room was in disorder, like the rest of the house, but it had, as it appeared to Lady Bell’s wide-open eyes, many pleasant tokens. There were strewn about little knick-knacks of a toilet-service, hand mirrors in ivory, silver pouncet boxes, either for a man’s or a woman’s use, which Lady Bell had not cast eyes on since the sale of Lady Lucie Penruddock’s effects. A gentleman’s set of cobweb lace ruffles and frills—of which it was fine ladies’ work, particularly when it was a work of love, to do the exquisite mending—lay, with the needle and thread hanging from the rent, and the gold thimble in an open workbox. A gentleman’s miniature, in which the powdered hair was represented in a queue, tied with a blue riband—the last suiting the effeminate fairness of the complexion, was half drawn from its case. Lady Bell saw at a glance that it was a likeness of Mr. Sundon, which had the place of honour on the table. She had not done glancing at these details, and starting nervously at every movement, when Mrs. Sundon, in the most charming of white morning gowns and close white caps, like a baby’s cap, came into the room. She stopped short in amazement when she saw who was her visitor. Mrs. Sundon had supposed that it was some humble solicitor of her patronage, some enterprising daughter of a townsman, catching at a straw’s pretence to enable her to boast that she had seen and spoken privately with the wife of the future member.