The old lady always found out when anyone was expected, and the more people were coming the noisier and more excited she became. One dreadful Sunday there were guests for luncheon--two of Edgar’s important clients, and little Ena’s godfather--a rich old bachelor cousin--and two unmarried ladies, friends of Mrs. Lambe’s maiden days. She was always very faithful to her friends. Aunt Tessie actually pranced downstairs and met some of these people in the hall as they arrived, and greeted them boisterously, and so incoherently that really they might almost have been excused for thinking that she had been taking too much to drink. Mrs. Lambe, hastening downstairs from her own room, could hear it all, although she could not see it, and it was thus that she afterwards described it to Edgar. “So glad--so glad to see you!” shouted Aunt Tessie. “This fine house--always open, and my nephew is so generous and hospitable. They take advantage, sometimes--there are bad people about, very bad people. Sometimes they make attempts ... one’s life isn’t as safe as it looks, I can assure you....” She had thrown out such ridiculous and yet sinister hints once or twice lately. But what _could_ the poor guests think of it all? They were very polite, and soon saw that the best thing to do was to ignore Aunt Tessie as far as possible, and pretend not to hear when she talked, and not to see when she shuffled about the room, upsetting ornaments here and there, and every now and then whisking round suddenly to look behind her as though she expected someone or something to be following her. Once she shouted very loud, “Get out, I tell you! I can _smell_ the poison from here!...” But after the first involuntary, startled silence, everyone began simultaneously to talk again, and very soon after that, luncheon was announced. Mrs. Lambe saw that her husband, talking to his principal guest and smiling a great deal, kept on all the time turning an anxious eye towards Aunt Tessie, and this emboldened her to do what she had never done before. She put her hand on the old lady’s arm, and detained her whilst the others were all going into the dining-room. “Dear auntie,” she said, speaking low and very gently, “I’m sure you’re not well. You look so flushed and tired. All these people are really too much for you. Do let Emma carry your lunch upstairs on a tray and have it comfortably in your own room.” But it was of no use. Aunt Tessie, her looks and her manner stranger than ever, vociferated an incoherent refusal, mixed up with something about Emma, to whom she had taken a violent fancy. “A good girl--the only one you can trust. She never _plots against people_!” Aunt Tessie shouted, nodding her head with wild emphasis, and rolling her eyeballs round in their sockets.