The ladies, however, had another attendant, who was more pertinacious, who waited for no invitation, but stalked in after them as he had stalked along by Mab’s side, with a much-troubled countenance but few words, all the way. Jim found himself in the midst of this imbroglio, which he did not in the least understand, not as a spectator only, but as a potential agent with something to say if he could but secure the means of saying it. What the message with which he was charged meant he knew as little as he could comprehend what possible or impossible link there could be between Mrs. Brown and Lady William, the one the symbol of dignity and modest greatness to Jim, the other---- He thought no evil of Mrs. Brown: he thought she was ‘queer’ though kind: that a woman so old and so clever should be on the terms of a _bon camarade_ with himself was astounding to him, but agreeable. There was no harm in anything she had either said or done in his knowledge. But he had known that the ladies of the parish, at whom she laughed so much, would have very little approval of Mrs. Brown had they known more of her--and Lady William was ‘a cut above’ the ladies of the parish: that she should be so much distressed by Mrs. Brown’s sudden departure as to faint, or almost faint, when she discovered it, was incredible to him. But things being so, Mrs. Brown’s message, which he had thought at the time to be a kind of insanity, began to have meaning in it--meaning still dark to him, but which, perhaps, Lady William would understand. He went into the cottage after them, accordingly, indifferent to Mab’s looks, who frowned him back: but Jim was not to be kept back by Mab. When he appeared in the drawing-room, Lady William had thrown herself into a chair, and was leaning back with an air of anxiety and trouble, yet relief to be at rest and unobserved for the moment. Jim’s entrance made her start, with a little exclamation of annoyance. ‘Jim,’ said Mab, ‘oh, do go away, there’s a good fellow; don’t you see that mother’s overdone?’ ‘Yes, I see,’ said Jim, ‘but I’ve got something to say to Aunt Emily.’ ‘Oh, what can you have to say? Something about going up to town. There’s a hundred people ready to go up to town--if that would do any good. Please, Jim, please, go away!’ ‘I have something to say to Aunt Emily,’ said Jim, standing first on one foot and then on the other in his embarrassment, but with a dogged look of determination that had never been seen upon his face before. ‘Get me a glass of water, Mab,’ said Lady William, ‘and let Jim alone. It is very kind of him to be so ready to help.’