‘I really can hardly see this dull day,’ sighed Mary. ‘I wonder if I might pull up the blind ever so little. You see, mamma has made a pencil-mark on all the sashes to show the housemaids where the end of the blind is to come, and I am afraid to raise it.’ ‘There is no sun,’ observed her sister; ‘I think you might do it.’ Mary rose from her frame, but, as she did so, a step was heard outside which sent her flying back to her place, and her mother entered. Lady Fordyce was a short, stout woman, whose nose and forehead made one perpendicular outline without any depression between the brows. Her eyes were prominent and rather like marbles; in her youth she had been called handsome. She had married late in life, and was now well over sixty, and her neck had shortened with advancing years; her very tight brown silk body compressed a figure almost distressingly ample for her age. She installed herself in a chair and bade her daughter continue practising. ‘I have practised an hour and my music is put away,’ said Agneta. ‘We were talking about Miss Raeburn. Will she come here, ma’am?’ ‘I suppose so,’ said Lady Fordyce; ‘but whether you will see much of her depends upon whether I consider her desirable company for you.’ ‘She may be nice after all,’ hazarded Mary. ‘I trust that I am a fit judge of what a young lady should be,’ replied her mother. ‘As Lady Eliza Lamont spends most of her time in the stable, she is hardly the person to form my daughter-in-law successfully.’ ‘She is Lady Eliza’s niece, ma’am, is she not?’ ‘She is a relation--a poor relation, and no doubt gets some sort of salary for attending to her ladyship. I must say a paid companion is _scarcely_ the choice that I should have made for Crauford. What a chance for her!’ ‘She is most fortunate,’ echoed Agneta. ‘Fortunate? A little more than fortunate, I should think! Adventuresses are more often called skilful than fortunate. Poor, poor boy!’ With this remark Lady Fordyce opened an account-book which lay on her lap, and began to look over its items. The girls were silent. Mary stitched on, and Agneta spread out some music she was copying; the leaden cloud which hung over domestic life at Fordyce Castle had settled down upon the morning when there was a sound of arrival in the hall outside. No bell had rung, and the sisters, astonished, suspended their respective employments and opened their mouths. Though there were things they proposed to teach Cecilia, their ways were not always decorative. Lady Fordyce, who was a little deaf, read her account-book undisturbed, and, when the door opened to admit Crauford, it slid off her brown silk knee like an avalanche. ‘I hardly expected you would take my hint so quickly,’ she said graciously, when the necessary embraces were over.