This amazing and startling state of affairs was too much for him immediately to comprehend. It stunned and bewildered him. Such, indeed, was the effect upon him that the first act of his mind, when he was left alone, and it began to act, was to ask of itself if there were really any grounds upon which Mrs Keswick could, with any reason, take up her position? The absolute absurdity of her position, however, became more and more evident, as Mr Brandon's mind began to straighten itself and stand up. And now he grew angry. Anger was a passion with which he was not at all unfamiliar, and the exercise of it seemed to do him good. When he had walked up and down his library for a quarter of an hour, he felt almost like his natural self; and with many nods of his head and shakes of his fist, he declared that the old woman was crazy, and that he would bundle her home just as soon as he could. By dinner-time he had cooled down a good deal, and he resolved to treat her with the respect due to her age and former condition of sanity; but to take care that she should not again be alone with him, and to arrange that she should return to her home that day. Mrs Keswick came to the table with a smiling face, and wearing a close-fitting white cap, which looked like a portion of her night gear, tied under her chin with broad, stiff strings. In this she appeared to her host as far more hideous than when wearing her sun-bonnet. Mr Brandon had arranged that two servants should wait upon the table, so that one of them should always be in the room, but in his supposition that the presence of a third person would have any effect upon the expression of Mrs Keswick's fond regard, he was mistaken. The meal had scarcely begun, when she looked around the room with wide-open eyes, and exclaimed: "Robert, if we should conclude to remain here, I think we will have this room re-papered with some light-colored paper. I like a light dining-room. This is entirely too dark." The two servants, one of whom was our old friend, Peggy, actually stopped short in their duties at this remark; and as for Mr Brandon, his appetite immediately left him, to return no more during that meal. He was obliged to make some answer to this speech, and so he briefly remarked that he had no desire to alter the appearance of his dining-room, and then hastened to change the conversation by making some inquiries about that interesting young woman, her niece, who, he had been informed, was not a married lady, as he had supposed her to be. At this intelligence, Peggy dropped two spoons and a fork; she had never heard it before.