‘Oh, if you feel the hill, Emily--it is a little steep--I don’t mind sitting down for a moment, if you feel you want it. It is very pretty here,’ said Mrs. Plowden, panting; ‘the water--through the trees--and the lodge--in the distance--with the wisteria just beginning to shoot.’ The pause made here was a few minutes in duration, for Mrs. Plowden had heated herself much by her argument and by clambering up the ascent--which was, indeed, only a very gentle ascent. At last, however, the party reached the door. As they came up sounds were audible inside, which disclosed themselves, when the door was hastily opened, as produced by a game of billiards, played by Mr. Leo Swinford, and--oh! terrible sight--his butler: though for the first moment Mrs. Plowden’s eager intelligence had not taken in this fact. She said, politely, that she was afraid they had driven the gentleman away---- ‘Oh!’ said Leo with a laugh, ‘it’s only Morris--let me fulfil his functions and take you to my mother.’ He offered the Rector’s wife his arm, but she drew modestly back. ‘My sister-in-law, Mr. Swinford. Oh, I hope I know what is _comme-il-faut_. I could not go before Lady William.’ Mrs. Plowden had a flash of exultation in thinking of that word--_comme-il-faut_. It was something like an inspiration that brought it to her lips in the very nick of time. The drawing-room at the Hall was a large room in three divisions, divided with pillars of sham marble with gilded capitals. It was too bright, notwithstanding the heaviness of the decorations. Large windows almost from the roof to the floor poured in floods of afternoon light, and shone pitiless upon the lady who rose languidly to meet her visitors, keeping her back to the light. She was a tall woman, exceedingly worn and thin, but with a great deal of grace in her movements, though she was old. Her age was the first thing which the eager rural visitors noted, for it was a sort of age which had never come under their observation before. She was dressed picturesquely in dark velvet with such folds and cunning lines as they had never dreamed of, and which plunged them into anxious questioning whether that might be the latest fashion. If so, it was unlike anything that Miss Singer had in her books and papers, or even Madame Mantz, who was Miss Singer’s great example in town; and her hair, which had not a white thread in it, was uncovered. No cap on her head! and approaching seventy, Mrs. Plowden thought, making a rapid calculation upon the facts she knew. Mrs. Swinford stepped forward a little with a faint cry of ‘Emily’ when Lady William appeared, and took her, with every appearance of cordiality, into her arms, and they kissed, or at least Mrs. Swinford touched Lady William’s cheeks one after the other, while the Plowdens made a respectful circle round and looked on. ‘This is indeed kind,’ Mrs. Swinford said. The ladies were so bent upon the aspect of the mistress