At this familiar allusion to her stature Lady Aurora turned hither and thither a little confusedly; Hyacinth saw her high, lean figure almost rock in the dim little room. Her commotion carried her to the door, and with ejaculations of which it was difficult to guess the meaning she was about to depart when Rosy detained her, having evidently much more social art than Paul. “Don’t you see it’s only because her ladyship’s standing up that she’s so, you gawk? _We’re_ not thirteen, at any rate, and we’ve got all the furniture we want, so there’s a chair for every one. Do be seated again, Lady Aurora, and help me to entertain this gentleman. I don’t know your name, sir; perhaps my brother will mention it when he has collected his wits. I’m very glad to see you, though I don’t see you very well. Why shouldn’t we light one of her ladyship’s candles? It’s very different to that common thing.” Hyacinth thought Miss Muniment very charming; he had begun to make her out better by this time, and he watched her small wan, pointed face, framed on the pillow by thick black hair. She was a diminutive dark person, pale and wasted with a lifelong infirmity; Hyacinth thought her manner denoted high accomplishment—he judged it impossible to tell her age. Lady Aurora pleaded that she ought to have gone, long since; but she seated herself nevertheless on the chair that Paul pushed toward her. “Here’s a go!” this young man exclaimed to the other guest. “You told me your name, but I’ve clean forgotten it.” Then when Hyacinth had pronounced it again he said to his sister: “That won’t tell you much; there are bushels of Robinsons in the north. But you’ll like him, he’s all right; I met him at the Poupins.” “Puppin” would represent the sound by which he designated the French bookbinder, and that was the name by which Hyacinth always heard him called at Crookenden’s. Hyacinth knew how much nearer to the right thing he himself came. “Your name, like mine, represents a flower,” said the little woman in the bed. “Mine is Rose Muniment and her ladyship’s is Aurora Langrish. That means the morning or the dawn; it’s the most beautiful of all, don’t you think?” Rose Muniment addressed this question to Hyacinth while Lady Aurora gazed at her shyly and mutely and as if admiring her manner, her self-possession and flow of conversation. Her brother lighted one of the visitor’s candles and the girl went on without waiting for Hyacinth’s response. “Isn’t it right she should be called the dawn when she brings light where she goes? The Puppins are the charming foreigners I’ve told you about,” she explained to her friend. “Oh, it’s so pleasant knowing a few foreigners!” Lady Aurora exclaimed with a spasm of expression. “They’re often so very fresh.” “Mr. Robinson’s a sort of foreigner and he’s very fresh,” said Paul Muniment. “He meets Mr. Puppin quite on his own ground. If I had his gift of tongues it would bring me on.”