After a while it became apparent that this exquisite figure was bound for the Rectory; and some thrill running through the very path brought the news before he did to the Plowdens, who came together as by some electric current driving the different atoms towards each other. I have no doubt this is an impossible metaphor, and that electric currents have nothing to do with atoms; but the reader who knows better will, I hope, derive a little gratification from his smile at my ignorance. Anyhow, the ladies of the house flew as by an instinctive movement into the drawing-room. Mrs. Plowden was the first to get there; and the girls found her shaking up the sofa cushions, and drawing the chairs about--not to range them against the wall and make everything tidy as her grandmother would have done, but to give them that air of comfortable disorder which is the right thing nowadays. Emmy followed her mother’s example with a little, flutter and agitation, shaking up anew the sofa cushions which Mrs. Plowden had just arranged to the best advantage, while Florence gathered up a leaf or two which had fallen from the flower vases, and picked off a faded flower or two from the pots of narcissus and jonquils which were in the room. It might have been the Queen who was coming, though it was only a natty young man. Then the Rector appeared, a little anxious, rubbing his hands. ‘What had I better do?’ he said; ‘shall I be here with you to receive him, or wait in my study? He may be coming only to call on me.’ This view of the subject filled the ladies with consternation, though they allowed there was a certain truth in it. ‘You had better be in the study, anyhow, James,’ Mrs. Plowden said; ‘and if he asks for me, of course I will send for you; if he is shown in to you instead, of course you will say, after you have had your conversation, “You must come into the drawing-room, Mr. Swinford; my wife and daughters will be rejoiced to see you;” or words to that effect.’