Lord Lufton had met Griselda more than once already; had met her before these high contracting parties had come to any terms whatsoever, and had evidently admired her. Lord Dumbello had remained silent one whole evening in London with ineffable disgust, because Lord Lufton had been rather particular in his attentions; but then Lord Dumbello’s muteness was his most eloquent mode of expression. Both Lady Hartletop and Mrs. Grantly, when they saw him, knew very well what he meant. But that match would not exactly have suited Mrs. Grantly’s views. The Hartletop people were not in her line. They belonged altogether to another set, being connected, as we have heard before, with the Omnium interest—“those _horrid_ Gatherum people,” as Lady Lufton would say to her, raising her hands and eyebrows, and shaking her head. Lady Lufton probably thought that they ate babies in pies during their midnight orgies at Gatherum Castle; and that widows were kept in cells, and occasionally put on racks for the amusement of the duke’s guests. When the Robarts’s party entered the drawing-room the Grantlys were already there, and the archdeacon’s voice sounded loud and imposing in Lucy’s ears, as she heard him speaking while she was yet on the threshold of the door. “My dear Lady Lufton, I would believe anything on earth about her—anything. There is nothing too outrageous for her. Had she insisted on going there with the bishop’s apron on, I should not have been surprised.” And then they all knew that the archdeacon was talking about Mrs. Proudie, for Mrs. Proudie was his bugbear. Lady Lufton after receiving her guests introduced Lucy to Griselda Grantly. Miss Grantly smiled graciously, bowed slightly, and then remarked in the lowest voice possible that it was exceedingly cold. A low voice, we know, is an excellent thing in woman. Lucy, who thought that she was bound to speak, said that it was cold, but that she did not mind it when she was walking. And then Griselda smiled again, somewhat less graciously than before, and so the conversation ended. Miss Grantly was the elder of the two, and having seen most of the world, should have been the best able to talk, but perhaps she was not very anxious for a conversation with Miss Robarts. “So, Robarts, I hear that you have been preaching at Chaldicotes,” said the archdeacon, still rather loudly. “I saw Sowerby the other day, and he told me that you gave them the fag end of Mrs. Proudie’s lecture.” “It was ill-natured of Sowerby to say the fag end,” said Robarts. “We divided the matter into thirds. Harold Smith took the first part, I the last——” “And the lady the intervening portion. You have electrified the county between you; but I am told that she had the best of it.” “I was so sorry that Mr. Robarts went there,” said Lady Lufton, as she walked into the dining-room leaning on the archdeacon’s arm.