It was in the forenoon of the day after Owen's visit that Mrs. Dormer-Smith was thus meditating. Her husband had started for Combe Park. The house was very quiet; the fire in her dressing-room was very warm; several budgets of gossip had arrived by the post from various country houses, and lay unopened within reach of her hand. Mrs. Dormer-Smith felt that there was a certain "luxury of woe" in a family affliction which justified one in saying "not at home," and sitting in a wadded dressing-gown, without causing one either heart-ache or anxiety. And she had been softly rocking herself in the day-dreams recorded above, when they were interrupted as suddenly, if not as fatally, as those of La Fontaine's milkmaid. James stood before her with a visiting card on a salver, and a cloud of depression--which was the utmost revelation of ill-humour his well-trained visage ever allowed itself, above-stairs--on his shaven countenance. "What is this, James? What do you mean by bringing me cards here--and now?" "I _said_ 'not at home,' ma'am, but the--the party didn't seem to understand; and, unfortunately, Miss Cheffington happening to pass through the hall at that moment----" "Who is it? Where is the person?" Mrs. Dormer-Smith took the card and examined it through her eyeglass with a sinking heart. Could that subversive young man have returned? Or was there, perchance, some other suitor in the field? An anarchical shoemaker, possibly! Pauline's confidence in Mrs. Dobbs had been completely blown into the air by learning that she had approved and encouraged May's engagement to a young man who calmly avowed that he possessed one hundred and fifty pounds a year of his own; and she felt that any dreadful revelation might be made at any moment. But the name on the card was not a masculine one, at any rate. Mrs. Something-or-other Simpson, she read on it. "Is the--lady with Miss Cheffington now, James?" "Yes, ma'am. Miss Cheffington took her into the dining-room. I thought that, as last time--I mean as Smithson wasn't in the way--I'd better let you know, ma'am." "Did the lady ask for me?" "N-no; I--well, I really hardly know, ma'am." "You hardly know?" "Well, ma'am, she talked a great deal, and so--so----It was uncommonly difficult to follow what she said. At first I thought she announced her name as being Oldchester. I _did_ say 'not at home' twice, but it was no use; and then Miss Cheffington happening to pass through the hall----" "That will do."