It must be allowed that when he came, triumphantly led by Reginald, with Bertie dancing in front of him (‘Oh, come along, Brown; mamma says you’re to come to supper. Come along, Brown; here is a place for you’), his looks did not conciliate these country gentlemen. He was a handsome young man in a rather rough way, with that look of watchful suspicion so often to be seen on the face of a man who is afraid of being condescended to by his superiors. He was in a sort of evening dress, as if he had been prepared for the invitation, with a doubtful coat of which it was difficult to say whether it was a morning coat of peculiar cut, or an old-fashioned one for evening use. He yielded unwillingly, it seemed, to the encouragements of the boys, and he was placed far down at the other end of the table, among the children and the youngest of the grown-up party, where he was totally out of place. Had he been near the other end, where the honest country gentlemen were, quite prepared to notice and take wine with him, Brown would have been more at his ease. He cast one glance at his mistress as he passed, a look which was gloomy, reproachful, almost defiant. Scotch peasant faces get that look sometimes without any bad meaning, and Cumberland faces are very like the Scotch. He was no doubt upbraiding her for having forced him to appear at all. At last it was all over, the last carriage rolling away, the last sleepy group of visitors sent to bed. Mrs. Blencarrow stood on her own hearth, leaning her head on the marble mantelpiece, looking down into the fire. She had been very gay to the last, smiling upon her guests; but her face when in perfect repose, and in the ease of solitude, no one near to spy upon it, was very different. Anxiety and trouble came into every line of her fine pale features. She changed her attitude after awhile, and looked straight into the darkness of the great mirror, behind the clock and the candelabra which stood in front of it. She looked into her own face with a determined, steady look, her eyes opened widely. She seemed to ask herself what she should do, but shook her head afterwards with a vague, sad smile. The mirror repeated all these changes of countenance, but gave no counsel. Someone came into the room at this moment, which made her start. It was one of the ladies staying in the house, who had forgotten something, and come back to fetch it. ‘Not gone to bed yet?’ she said. ‘No,’ said Mrs. Blencarrow; ‘after a business of this kind, however tired I may be, I don’t sleep.’ ‘I know what you are doing,’ said her friend. ‘You are asking yourself, now that it’s all over, “What’s the good?”’ ‘No; I don’t think so,’ she said quickly; then changed her look and said, ‘Perhaps I was.’ ‘Oh, I am sure you were! and it is no good except for such pleasure as you get out of it.’ ‘Pleasure!’ said Mrs. Blencarrow. ‘But the boys liked it,’ she said.