"Do you know," she said, "the same thought has perplexed me; only it was different. I can imagine myself old; a garrulous great-grandmother, good to Lenore's grandchildren, a white-haired, lively, pleasant old lady, fond of the society of young people; but, oh! Nora, I cannot picture myself as middle-aged. I fail to imagine the ten years passage between thirty-five and forty-five, between forty-five and fifty-five. If I could go to sleep for twenty years like Rip van Winkle, and reappear on the scene with grey hair and a nice lace cap, I should understand the _rôle_ perfectly; but the middle passage, I tell you fairly, the prospect of that fills me with dismay." "And yet I also am only six years distant from the point which you kindly mark as the entrance to middle age, and can contemplate the prospect with equanimity." "Queens never age," observed Dolly, "they only acquire dignity; ordinary mortals get crooked and battered and wrinkled and--ugly. I am afraid I shall get very ugly; grow fat, probably; fond of good living, and drink porter for luncheon." "How can you be so absurd?" exclaimed Mrs. Werner. "Nora," said Dolly solemnly, "I have, little as you may think it, very serious thoughts at times about my future. I would give really and truly ten pounds--and you know if I had the income of a Rothschild I should still be in want of that particular ten pounds--but I would, indeed, give that amount if any one could tell me how I should spend the twenty years stretching between thirty-five and fifty-five." "I do not imagine the most daring gipsy could say the line of your life would be cut short." "Oh! no, I shall reach the white hair and the lace cap and the great grandmother stage; but how? that is the question." "My dear, leave these matters to God." "I must, I suppose," said Dolly resignedly. CHAPTER VII. LENORE. When Mrs. Mortomley stated that the rich men's wives--the carriage-and-pair and moderate-single-brougham ladies, who had duly called at Homewood and made acquaintance with the colour-maker's bride--hated her, her statement was probably too sweeping. Hatred is a big word, and conveys the idea of an overwhelming amount of detestation, and I do not think really there was a woman amongst the whole number included in Dolly's mental and verbal condemnation who was not far too much occupied with the grandeur of her own surroundings--the wish to eclipse her neighbours--the perfections of her children and the shortcomings of her servants, to have time to cultivate any feeling stronger than very sufficient dislike for the new mistress of Homewood. So far as dislike went, Mrs. Mortomley was right. The ladies who called upon her, and who, in their own way--which was not her way--were wiser, better, happier women than Dolly, disliked her as nation dislikes nation, as class dislikes class, as sect dislikes sect, as diverging politicians dislike each other.