If Sir Peter was a bachelor, that was not Mrs. Poskett’s fault. She herself had only narrowly missed belonging to the minor nobility. Alderman Poskett, her deceased husband, had died just as he was ripe for the Shrievalty, and, sure enough, the year he would have been Sheriff the King had dined with the Lord Mayor, and Poskett would infallibly have received a knighthood, had he been alive. Mrs. Poskett felt, in a confused way, that she had been badly used, and that the Walk would only be stretching ordinary courtesy very slightly by addressing her as Lady Poskett. Unfortunately this never occurred to the Walk, and as Mrs. Poskett was determined to achieve the title somehow, she had cast her eyes on Sir Peter. The latter, however, had not been a handsome midshipman, and a still handsomer Captain, without acquiring considerable experience in the wiles of the sex, and, so far, Mrs. Poskett’s blandishments had met with only negative success. Mrs. Poskett lived next door to the Admiral, and to her great distress there was a sort of subdued feud between them; a feud she could do nothing to abate. Could she be expected to get rid of Sempronius, for the sake of Sir Peter? In the first place, it is not so easy to get rid of a long-haired, yellow Persian cat. Once, in a fit of desperation at the failure of her siege on the Admiral’s affections, she had put Sempronius in a market-basket, and she and Abigail—her little maid, fresh from a Charity School—had carried him quite half a mile and let him loose, after a tragic farewell, in the middle of a cabbage-field. But when they got home disconsolate, there was Sempronius washing his face in front of the fire as if nothing had happened. After that there was never again any question of getting rid of him. If the Admiral really feared for the safety of his thrush, why did n’t he get rid of the thrush? Only once had Sempronius been found sitting on the roof of the osier cage, and extending a soft paw downwards through its bars; the thrush was singing blithely all the time, and you could see by the expression on Sempronius’s face that his only feeling was one of admiration for the song. But the Admiral had taken on amazingly, had stormed and sworn, and promised to throw Sempronius into the river if he ever caught him at such games again. Since that day Mrs. Poskett had felt that she had a very uphill task before her; but she had set herself to work to become Lady Antrobus with increased determination. She was heartily encouraged in this by Miss Ruth Pennymint, who lived in the third house from the top corner—lived there with her much younger sister, Miss Barbara.