'Oh, I wish I had the power of setting people down when they say what is undesirable, like Miss Lang, or Lady Adela!' sighed Mary. 'Try to think of them like your school girls,' he said. The returning of the calls was like continually pulling the string of a shower-bath, and glad were the sighs when people proved to be not at home; but on the whole, being entertained was not half so formidable as entertaining, and a bride was not expected to do more than sit in her white silk, beside the host. But the return parties were an incubus on their minds. Only they were not to be till after Christmas. CHAPTER XIII THE DOWER HOUSE Over the hearth of the drawing-room of the Dower House, in the sociable twilight that had descended on the afternoon tea-table, sat three ladies--for Lady Adela and Miss Morton had just welcomed Mrs. Bury, who, though she had her headquarters in London, generally spent her time in visits to her married daughters or expeditions abroad. Amice had just exhibited her doll, Elmira's last acquisition, a little chest of drawers, made of matchboxes and buttons, that Constance Morton had taught her to make, and then she had gone off to put the said Elmira and her companions to bed, after giving it as her grave opinion that Lady Northmoor was a great acquisition. 'Do you think so?' said Mrs. Bury, after the laugh at the sedate expression. 'She is very kind to Amice, and I do not think she will do her any harm,' said Lady Adela. 'Governessing was her _metier_,' added Bertha, 'so it is not likely.' 'And how does it turn out?' 'Oh, it might be a good deal worse. I see no reason for not living on here.' 'And you, Birdie?' 'No, I _couldn't_! I've been burning to get away these seven years, and as Northmoor actually seems capable of taking my boys, my last tie is gone. I'm only afraid he'll bore them with too much Sabbatarianism and temperance. He is just the cut of the model Sabbath-school teacher, only he vexes Addie's soul by dashes of the Ritualist.' 'Well,' said Mrs. Bury, 'the excellent Mr. Woodman is capable of improvement.' 'But how?' said Lady Adela. 'Narrow ritualism without knowledge or principle is a thing to be deprecated.' 'Is it without knowledge or principle?' 'How should an attorney's clerk get either?' 'But I understand you that they are worthy people, and not obnoxious.' 'Worthy!' exclaimed Bertha. 'Yes, worthy to their stiff backbones, worthy to the point of utter dulness; they haven't got enough vulgarity even to drop their h's or be any way entertaining. I should like them ever so much better if they ate with their knives and drank out of their saucers, but she can't even mispronounce a French word worse than most English people.' 'No pretension even?'