“I will share the midge if you like. I have other places where I must call. I can wait for you outside if you like, or I might even go in with you, for five minutes,” Miss Mildmay said severely, as if the shortness of that term justified the impulse. And they drove out accordingly, in the slumbrous afternoon, when most people were composing themselves comfortably by the side of their newly-lighted fires, comforting themselves that, as it had come on to rain, nobody would call, and that they were quite free either to read a book or to nod over it till tea-time. It rained softly, persistently, quietly, as the midge drove along amid a mingled shower of water-drops and falling leaves. The leaves were like bits of gold, the water-drops sparkled on the glass of the windows. All was soft, weeping, and downfall, the trees standing fast through the mild rain, scattering, with a sort of forlorn pleasure in it, their old glories off them. The midge stumbled along, jolting over the stones, and the old ladies seated opposite--for it held only one on each side--nodded their heads at each other, partly because they could not help it, partly to emphasise their talk. “That little thing! to have gone wrong at her age! But girls now were not like what they used to be--they were very different--not the least like what we used to be in our time.” “Here is the midge trundling along the drive and the old cats coming to inquire. They are sure to have heard everything that ever was said in the world,” cried Stella, “and they are coming to stare at me and find out if I look as if I felt it. They shall not see me at all, however I look. I am not going to answer to them for what I do.” “Certainly not,” said Katherine. “If that is what they have come for, you had better leave them to me.” “I don’t know, either,” said Stella, “it rains, and nobody else will come. They might be fun. I shall say everything I can think of to shock them, Kate.” “They deserve it, the old inquisitors,” cried Kate, who was more indignant than her sister; “but I think I would not, Stella. Don’t do anything unworthy of yourself, dear, whatever other people may say.” “Oh! unworthy of myself!--I don’t know what’s worthy of myself--nothing but nonsense, I believe. I should just like, however, for fun, to see what the old cats have to say.” The old cats came in, taking some time to alight from the midge and shake out their skirts in the hall. They were a little frightened, if truth must be told. They were not sure of their force against the sharp little claws sheathed in velvet of the little white cat-princess, on whom they were going to make an inquisition, whether there was any stain upon her coat of snow. “We need not let them see we’ve come for that, or have heard anything,” Mrs. Shanks whispered in Miss Mildmay’s ear. “Oh, I shall let them see!” said the fiercer visitor; but nevertheless she trembled too.