I read the note again. "We"--who were "we"?--and "love from both." Surely Flora must be with her! I kept wishing--and I could not tell myself why--that Ephraim had less to do with it. I did not like his seeming to be thus at the beck and call of Annas; and I did not know why it vexed me. I must be growing selfish. That would never do! Why should Ephraim not do things for Annas? I was an older friend, it is true, but that was all. I had no more claim on him than any one else. I recognised that clearly enough: yet I could not banish the feeling that I was sorry for it. When Ephraim came, I thought he looked exceeding grave. I had told Grandmamma beforehand that Annas (and I thought Flora also) had returned to London, and asked me to go and see them, which I begged her leave to do. Grandmamma took a pinch of snuff over it, and then said that Caesar might call me a chair. "Could I not walk, Grandmamma? It is very near." "Walk!" cried Grandmamma, and looked at me much as if I had asked if I might not lie or steal. "My dear, you must not bring country ways to Town like that. Walk, indeed!--and you a Courtenay of Powderham! Why, people would take you for a mantua-maker." "But, Grandmamma, please,--if I am a Courtenay, does it signify what people take me for?" "I should like to know, Caroline," said Grandmamma, with severity, "where you picked up such levelling ideas? Why, they are Whiggery, and worse. I cannot bear these dreadful mob notions that creep about now o' days. We shall soon be told that a king may as well sell his crown and sceptre, because he would be a king without them." "He would not, Madam?" I am afraid I spoke mischievously. "My dear, of course he would. Once a king, always a king. But the common people need to have symbols before their eyes. They cannot take in any but common notions of what they see. A monarch without a crown, or a judge without robes, or a bishop without lawn sleeves, would never do for them. Why, they would begin to think they were just men like themselves! They do think so, a great deal too much." And Grandmamma took two pinches in rapid succession, which proceeding with her always betrays uneasiness of mind. "Dear, dear!" she muttered, as she snapped her box again, and dropped it into her pocket. "It must be that lamentable mixture in your blood. Whatever a Courtenay could be thinking of, to marry a Dissenter,--a Puritan minister's daughter, too,--he must have been mad! Yet she was of good blood on the mother's side." I believe Grandmamma knows the pedigree of every creature in this mortal world, up to the seventh generation. "Was that Deborah Hunter, Grandmamma?" "What do you know about Deborah Hunter?" returned Grandmamma pulling out her snuff-box, and taking a third pinch in a hurry, as if the mere mention of a Dissenter made her feel faint. "Who has been talking to you about such a creature? The less you hear of her the better."