John came into the room with gloom upon his countenance, and a frown upon his noble brow. Letitia had arrested the course of her own passion--she had dried her eyes, and dropped her voice, and prepared herself to meet him with a real apprehension. It was not often that she was afraid of John, but for once there was no doubt that if John was in the mind to find fault he had a sufficient reason. The sight of her husband’s troubled face checked her anger and dried up the tears of vexation that had been in her eyes. She gave Mary an appealing look, and made her a motion to sit down by her. It went through her mind quickly that Mary might make a little stand for Ralph when she could not do it herself, and thus break the edge of the assault. If John could be made to see that Ralph was Mary’s old sweetheart, that it was Mary’s indiscretion which had brought him there, it would be easier in every way to manage the dilemma. John came in with his heavy step and his countenance overcast, but he looked like a man perplexed rather than angry, and as he came forward it was apparent that he held a telegram in his hand. “Look here,” he said, “Letitia, here is a bore: just when we have got the house full to the door: look at that--that he should choose this time of all others for the visit that has been spoken of so long!” “John,” said Letitia, with a gasp, “I never meant him to come here.” “You never meant Frogmore to come here?” “Frogmore!” she said, with a sort of wondering obtuseness. She was never stupid, and it made John angry, because he was quite unaccustomed to be misunderstood. “You had better look at the telegram,” he said impatiently. “I don’t pretend to know what you mean. Here is the house crammed with men, and my brother, for the first time since we have been married, proposes a visit. What are we to do?” It took Letitia some time to understand; her mind was so preoccupied by the other subject that she could not distract her thoughts from it. Frogmore--Frogmore or Ralph--which was it? She tried to shake herself together and grasp the sense of the words at which she was gazing: “Could come to you to-morrow for three or four days, if it suits you. “FROGMORE.” “Was there ever such a bore?” John continued saying. “The first time he has proposed to come. And we’ve got the house crammed, and not a corner to put him in. What am I to do?” “Frogmore!” Letitia murmured again to herself; and John went on saying, with a monotony which is natural to many men, the same burden of regret, “The house full of men and not a corner to put him in,” as if, in some way, the repeated statement of that fact might make a change. “I don’t know what you are thinking of,” said Letitia at length with much relief in the sense that her own brother would be forgotten in the importance of his. “Of course, Frogmore must come, and there is an end of it. I hope you answered his telegram at once.”