She could not sit down, she walked up to the fireplace and stared through her glasses for a moment at the portrait. It was quite true that the man was a very good-looking Warden! Yes, but scarcely the sort of person she would have thought suitable to look after young men; and then she walked away to the window. She was framing in her mind the way in which she should open the subject of her call at this early hour. She almost started when she heard the door click, and turned round to see Lady Dashwood coming towards her. "Dear one, how tired you look!" said Mrs. Potten; "and I really ought not to have come at this unholy hour----" "It's not so early," said Lady Dashwood. "You know work begins in this house at eight o'clock in the morning." "So much the better," said Mrs. Potten. "I don't like the modern late hours. In old days our Prime Ministers were up at six in the morning attending to their correspondence. When are they up now, I should like to know? Well," she added, "I have come to offer you my congratulations. I got a letter this morning from Lady Belinda, telling me all about it. No, I won't sit down, I merely ran in for a moment." Lady Dashwood did not smile. She simply repeated: "From Belinda, telling you all about it!" Mrs. Potten noted the sarcasm underlying the remark. "Humph!" said Mrs. Potten. "And you, my dear, said nothing yesterday, though we sat together for half an hour." "They were not engaged till yesterday evening," said Lady Dashwood. "Belinda writing yesterday speaks of this engagement having already taken place," said Mrs. Potten; "but, of course, she is wrong." "Yes," said Lady Dashwood. "Ah!" cried Mrs. Potten, nodding her head up and down once or twice. "Jim has gone to town this morning," said Lady Dashwood. "To buy a ring?" said Mrs. Potten. "Well, I really ought to have brought you Lady Belinda's letter to read. She thinks you have got your heart's desire. That's _her_ way of looking at it." Lady Dashwood made no answer. "I never think lies are amusing," said Mrs. Potten, "when you know they are lies. But you see, you never said a word. Well, well, so Dr. Middleton is engaged!" "Yes, engaged," repeated Lady Dashwood. "I'm afraid you're tired," said Mrs. Potten. "You did too much yesterday." "I'm tired," said Lady Dashwood. "I always expected," said Mrs. Potten, "that the Warden would have found some nice, steady, capable country rector's daughter. But I suppose, being a man as well as a Warden, he fell in love with a pretty face, eh?" and Mrs. Potten moved as if to go. "Well, she is a lucky girl." "Very lucky," said Lady Dashwood. Then Mrs. Potten stared closely with her short-sighted eyes into her friend's face and saw such resigned miseries there that Mrs. Potten felt a stirring movement of those superficial emotions of which we have already spoken.