she put them on and wore them, in the economies she practised in order to have money for charity and the ingenuity with which these slender resources were made to go far—in the very manner in which she spoke, a kind of startled simplicity. She wished to emulate her in all these particulars; to learn how to economise still more cunningly, to get her bonnets at the same shop, to care as little for the fit of her gloves, to ask in the same tone, “Isn’t it a bore Susan Crotty’s husband has got a ticket-of-leave?” She said Lady Aurora made her feel like a French milliner and that if there was anything in the world she loathed it was a French milliner. Each of these persons was powerfully affected by the other’s idiosyncrasies, and each wanted the other to remain as she was while she herself should be transformed into the image of her friend. One night, going to Madeira Crescent a little later than usual, Hyacinth met the pilgrim from Belgrave Square just leaving the house. She had a different air from any he had seen in her before; appeared flushed and even a little agitated, as if she had been learning a piece of bad news. She said, “Oh how do you do?” with her customary quick, vague laugh, but she went her way without stopping to talk. Three minutes later he mentioned to the Princess that he had encountered her, and this lady replied: “It’s a pity you didn’t come a little sooner. You’d have assisted at a scene.” “At a scene?” he repeated, not understanding what violence could have taken place between mutual adorers. “She made me a scene of tears, of earnest remonstrance—perfectly well meant, I needn’t tell you. She thinks I’m going too far.” “I imagine you tell her things you don’t tell me,” Hyacinth said. “Oh you, my dear fellow!” his hostess murmured. She spoke absent-mindedly, as if she were thinking of what had passed with Lady Aurora and as if the futility of telling things to Mr. Robinson had become a commonplace.