Mrs. Darling was not wise. Her intentions no doubt were good, but her judgment was not so. From the day following that of the ceremony, when Mr. and Mrs. St. John were fairly away, Mrs. Darling haunted the Hall. Anxious for the comfort of Charlotte as she had never been for anything in her life, she fell into the mistake of interfering with Charlotte's future home before she entered upon it. She went about the house, peering here, peeping there; she had changes wrought in the rooms, in the furniture; she found fault with the arrangements made by the servants, who had done their best, and superseded them at will. She changed the position of beds, she examined linen, she turned Benja and Honour from their day-nursery into another; she ordered this to be done, she countermanded that. This might have been tolerated in Mrs. Darling; indeed it must have been; but what the servants could not and would not tolerate, was a second edition of it in Prance. Prance generally accompanied her mistress to the Hall; one or two nights was left to sleep there; Mrs. Darling's worrying orders were often transmitted through Prance; and Prance, as unwise as her mistress, assumed a supercilious superiority (which indeed was partly her natural manner) excessively distasteful to Mr. St. John's rather indulged but most respectable household. It was a sad mistake. It was perhaps the first link in a heavy chain, whose fetters would have to be worn for ever. Mrs. Darling ought to have waited until her daughter came home, she could then have suggested these alterations privately to her if she deemed them so essential, and suffered Charlotte's own authority to carry them out. How Mrs. Darling, a shrewd, sensible, easy woman in general, fell into the error, must remain a marvel. It caused the servants to look upon her as a meddling, underbred woman, who was interfering most unjustifiably in what did not concern her. She was really nothing of the sort; it all arose from her surpassing anxiety for Charlotte's comfort. This, I say, must have been borne from Mrs. Darling; but when that unfortunate Prance came in, all the resentment was turned upon her. Prance ordered after her mistress. Worse still, she did not order as from her mistress, but as from herself; and her cold, you-must-obey-me tones, exasperated, the maids at the Hall almost to rebellion. Putting present ill-feeling apart, the result was unfortunate: for it created a prejudice against their new mistress, which Mrs. St. John would have to live down. Altogether, what with the advent of the new wife, the perpetual visitation of Mrs. Darling, and the hatred to Prance, Alnwick Hall was kept in a state of internal commotion.