They reached Gorleth, the nearest railway-station to Maple Lodge, at half-past four. Sir Henry and his daughter Cicely were on the platform, Cicely in a short grey riding habit, looking in this practical garment a thousand times handsomer and more captivating than she had done in her most brilliant ball-dress, according to the wont of her countrywomen, who, from the royal ladies downwards, never look worse than when dressed solely with the view to charm. Let it be acknowledged once for all: the Englishwoman, to her credit be it said, is a riding animal, a walking animal, a boating animal, a cooking animal, a creature fond of hard work and hard play, full of energy and capabilities for better things than the piano-strumming and Oxford local cramming which are now drummed into her so diligently. But her social qualities are so poor as to be scarce worth cultivation unless some better methods be discovered than those now in vogue. Her dancing is more vigorous than graceful, her conversation is inane, her deportment in full dress uneasy and deplorable, and her manner at social gatherings where no active muscular exertion is required of her, dull and constrained. Ten girls are handsome and attractive in a boat or on the tennis-ground to one who at an “at-home” or a dance is passable enough to make a man want an introduction. The metropolis has the pick of the market, if the term may be allowed, in marriageable maidens as in flowers and fruit. But all alike lose their freshest, greatest charm when they are plucked from their natural setting of country green. George had an inkling of this truth as he helped his tiny wife out of the railway carriage, amidst the stares of a crowd of country market-folk, who gaped as they would have done if a regulation fairy, gauze wings, wand and all, had suddenly descended down the wide chimney on to their cottage hearth. He should love and admire her whatever she did, but he wanted her to sway the sceptre of conquest over all these friends at Willingham and Maple Lodge, and his heart ached with fear lest a breath of disapproval should touch her, lest she should appear to any disadvantage under such new conditions. She herself, happily, was tormented by no such fear. She ran up to Sir Henry, who was dressed in a vile suit of coarse mustard-coloured stuff, a common little hat on his head, and a broad smile of recovered bliss on his face, looking as no self-respecting farmer among his tenants would have dared to look, and rejoicing in his escape from town and tight clothes. “Why, you little town-mouse,” he said, laughing good-humouredly as he looked down on the tiny lady, “I don’t know how you will live down here. We shall have to feed you on butterflies’ wings and dew-drops; I should think a mouthful of plain roast beef would kill you.” “Oh no, it wouldn’t, Sir Henry,” cried Nouna, distressed and offended by these doubts cast on her accomplishments. “I eat a great deal, don’t I, George?”