Mrs. Merillia, although taken completely by surprise, and fully conscious that her grandson had committed an outrage in turning an arranged and intimate quartette without permission into a disorganised sextette, bowed with self-possessed graciousness, and indicated a chair to Madame, who seated herself in it with that sort of defensive and ostentatious majesty which is often supposed by ill-bred people to be a perfect society manner. Mr. Sagittarius remained standing in his enormous suit, turning out his feet, over which Mr. Ferdinand’s trousers rippled in broadcloth waves, in the first position. A slight pause ensued, during which the Prophet was uncomfortably affected by the behaviour of Madame, who gazed at the very neat and superior wig worn by Mrs. Merillia, and at that lady’s charming silver grey damask gown, in a manner that suggested amazement tempered with indignation, her instant expression of these two sentiments being only held in check by a certain reverence which was doubtless inspired by the pretty room, the thick carpet, the ancestral pictures upon the walls, and the lofty bearing of Lady Julia Postlethwaite, who could scarcely conceal her very natural surprise at the extraordinary appearance of Mr. Sagittarius. As to Mrs. Merillia, although she was, in reality, near fainting with wonder at her grandson’s escapade, she preserved an expression of gracious benignity, and did not allow a motion of her eyelids or a flutter of her fan to betray her emotion at finding herself the unprepared hostess of such unusual guests. The Prophet broke the silence by saying, in a voice that cracked with agitation,-- “I trust--I sincerely trust that we shall have a clement spring this year.” Lady Julia, at whom he had looked while uttering this original desire, was about to reply when Madame uttered a stentorian click and interposed. “In the spring the young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love,” she remarked, with the fictitious ease of profound ill-breeding. No one dared to dispute the portentous statement, and she resumed majestically,-- “The Mouse is delicious in spring.” There was another dead silence, and Madame, turning with patronising and heavy affability towards Lady Julia, added,-- “Your ladyship doubtless loves the Mouse--_Mus Pulcherrimo_--in spring as I do?” The Prophet felt as if he were being pricked by thousands of red-hot needles, and the perspiration burst out in beads upon his forehead. “I am not specially fond of mice in spring, or indeed at any season,” replied Lady Julia, with her slight, but very distinct and bell-like, cough. “I said the Mouse, your ladyship,” returned Madame, feeding upon this titled acquaintance with her bulging black eyes, and pushing the kid boots well out from under her brown skirt. “I observed that the Mouse was peculiarly delicious in the season of love.”