If, Reader, you have ever engaged in the back-breaking, hand-blistering task of eradicating a scattered and well-established colony of nettles, you have no doubt discovered that a nettle--except a few parvenus, growth of the last rains--does not live to itself alone. It possesses endless underground ramifications and knotted connections with other groups and neighbouring groves of nettles. Get hold of the root of one, and you pull up a long string rosetted at intervals with bunches of the same stimulating family. So it was with the social world of the Miss Nevills. There was always what they called "a link," and one of Aunt Harriet's chief interests in life was the establishment of these links in the case of each newcomer, though nothing much happened when it was established. Just as you and I, Reader, in our vulgar, homely way, strike up an eager acquaintanceship, even form a friendship with equally communicative strangers on steamers, in omnibuses, in trains, because we have both stayed in the same hotel at Lauter-brunnen, or go to the same dentist, or derive benefit from the same pre-digested food, so the Miss Nevills continually established links by more aristocratic avenues with the assiduity of Egyptologists. But much of the pleasure of Mrs. Stoddart's visit was damped by the fact which she discreetly concealed till almost the last moment, that she was the bearer of an invitation from Mr. Stirling to Annette to spend a few days at Noyes during her own visit there. Aunt Maria was wounded to the quick. She had made up her mind to cultivate Mr. Stirling, to steep herself in long literary conversations with him, to read aloud certain important chapters of _The Silver Cross_ to him, on which his judgment would be invaluable. And here was Annette, who had not an idea in her mind beyond housekeeping and gardening and singing in the choir, here was Annette preferred before her. Aunt Maria yearned to be admitted to the society of the "right people" in the literary world as well as the social one. She had been made much of by the camp followers of literature, who were always prodigal of their invitations. And a few uneasy vanities, such as the equally ignored Mr. Harvey, found a healing comfort as she did herself in their respectful adulation. But all the time she knew that she was an outsider in the best literary circles. There was no one more democratic than the author of _Crooks and Coronets_ when she approached the literary class. She was, to use her own phraseology, "quite ready" to meet with urbanity anyone distinguished in the world of letters, quite regardless of family. But they apparently were not equally ready to meet her--at least, not to meet her a second time. Mr. Stirling was a writer of considerable importance, and Aunt Maria was magnanimously prepared to overlook the fact that his father had been a small shopkeeper in Hammersmith. But he preferred Annette's society to hers.