And she dragged her into the drawing-room. Catherine submitted with all her usual outward calm, faintly smiling at her sister’s onslaught. But she would not let Agnes put her down on the sofa. She stood with her hand on the back of a chair. ‘The weather is very close and exhausting,’ she said, gently lifting her hand to her hat. But the hand dropped, and she sank heavily into the chair. ‘Cathie, you are faint,’ cried Agnes, running to her. Catherine waved her away, and, with an effort of which none but she would have been capable, mastered the physical weakness. ‘I have been a long way, dear,’ she said, as though in apology, ‘and there is no air. Yes, I will go up-stairs and lie down a minute or two. ‘Oh no, don’t come, I will be down for tea directly.’ And refusing all help, she guided herself out of the room, her face the color of the foam on the beck outside. Agnes stood dumfounded. Never in her life before had she seen Catherine betray any such signs of physical exhaustion. Suddenly Rose ran in, shut the door carefully behind her, and rushing up to Agnes put her hands on her shoulders. ‘He has proposed to her, and she has said no!’ ‘He? What, Mr. Elsmere? How on earth can you know?’ ‘I saw them from up-stairs come to the bottom of the lane. Then he rushed on, and I have just met her on the stairs. It’s as plain as the nose on your face.’ Agnes sat down bewildered. ‘It is hard on him’ she said at last. ‘Yes, it is _very_ hard on him!’ cried Rose, pacing the room, her long thin arms clasped behind her, her eyes flashing, ‘for she loves him!’ ‘Rose!’ ‘She does, my dear, she does,’ cried the girl, frowning. I know it in a hundred ways.’ Agnes ruminated. ‘And it’s all because of us?’ she said at last reflectively. ‘Of course! I put it to you, Agnes’--and Rose stood still with a tragic air--‘I put it to you, whether it isn’t too bad that three unoffending women should have such a role as this assigned them against their will!’ The eloquence of eighteen was irresistible. Agnes buried her head in the sofa cushion, and shook with a kind of helpless laughter. Rose meanwhile stood in the window, her thin form drawing up to its full height, angry with Agnes, and enraged with all the world. ‘It’s absurd, it’s insulting,’ she exclaimed. ‘I should imagine that you and I Agnes, were old enough and sane enough to look after mamma, put out the stores, say our prayers, and prevent each other from running away with adventurers! I won’t be always in leading-strings. I won’t acknowledge that Catherine is bound to be an old maid to keep me in order. I hate it! It is sacrifice run mad.’ And Rose turned to her sister, the defiant head thrown back, a passion of manifold protest in the girlish looks. ‘It is very easy, my dear, to be judge in one’s own case,’ replied Agnes calmly, recovering herself. ‘Suppose you tell Catherine some of these home-truths?’