His place in the drawing-room was soon supplied by Miss Arabella Glossop; and this second intruder was scarcely more welcome than the first. Her ladyship, however, was so far disturbed from her reading, that now the great volume was closed. And it was very polite and considerate in Miss Glossop not to suffer her ladyship to replace the heavy book on the table where it usually lay, but her ladyship silently and frowningly resisted Miss Glossop’s politeness, so that the young lady was under the necessity of almost forcibly taking the ponderous volume from the feeble hands that held it. But there was no rudeness in the violence, it was rather the earnestness of friendly officiousness. There are however some tempers and some states of mind which convert almost everything into an affront; and even civilities themselves, offered with all the considerateness and circumspection imaginable or devisable, are wilfully and cruelly tortured into a wrong meaning. This dexterity of misinterpretation Lady Aimwell possessed in a degree not becoming her rank as the lady of a baronet and a magistrate. It must indeed be acknowledged, that there was some little more excuse for Lady Aimwell than for Mrs Greendale, whose temper, our readers will recollect, was of a similar description. But there was a great and wide difference between the manners of Miss Primrose and the general stile and manner of Miss Glossop. The former was gentle, quiet and unobtrusive; the latter was noisy, vulgar and affected. And there was also a mighty difference between Sir George Aimwell and the late Dr Greendale. The baronet was coarse, unfeeling and inconsiderate; while the doctor was meek, polite, and generally attentive and considerate. It is not to be wondered at that Lady Aimwell was occasionally morose and pettish. And above all there was this difference in the lot of the two ladies, namely, that Mrs Greendale was, with very few exceptions indeed, master and mistress too, while poor Lady Aimwell was neither one nor the other; her ladyship might well enough read Stackhouse and be sulky. Miss Glossop, observing the unusual moroseness of her ladyship, and not wishing to give offence directly or indirectly, thought it was but a piece of civility to ask whether her ladyship was unwell. To this courteous interrogation, her ladyship thought not fit to give a direct and immediate answer; but being thus compelled to speak, she did break out with mighty vehemence against poor Miss Glossop. “I do not know, Miss Glossop,” exclaimed Lady Aimwell, “what may be your ideas of propriety; but I know that, when I was young, if any one had acted as you did at the castle the other day, it would have been considered a very great breach of decorum.” To this very abrupt and indefinite accusation Miss Glossop pleaded not guilty, saying, “I do not know what your ladyship alludes to. I certainly did look over the castle in company with Lord Spoonbill, but I can see no impropriety in that.”