All the year long, from January to December, living at Katterley Lodge with nothing to do! And he was really beginning not to feel the sameness. Their income, about six hundred a year in all, was not sufficient to allow of their mixing in the great world's fair, the London season; and one visit only had they paid the seaside. The pretty cottage, with its roses and its honeysuckles for a bower, and fishing for recreation in the summer season! It had a monotonous charm, no doubt; but the young man's conscience sometimes warned him that he was wasting his life. The tea and the fish came in, and they sat down to it, Mrs. Lake remarking that she had forgotten to mention his sister had been there. "What has she come over for?" "To see the Jupps. Some little matter of business, she said." "Business with the Jupps! Gossiping, rather, Clary." "She said she should remain to tea with them. I wanted her to come back and take it with us; I told her there would be some fish. The fish was a great temptation, she said, but she must stay at the Jupps'! Who's this?" continued Mrs. Lake as the gate was pushed open with a hasty hand "Why, here she is!" "And now for a clatter." He alluded to his sister's voluble tongue, but he got up and went out to greet her, table-napkin in hand It was Mrs. Chester, his half-sister. She was ten years older than he, twenty times older in experience, and rather inclined to be dictatorial to him and his gentle wife. Her husband, a clergyman, had died a few months back, and she was not left well-off in the world. She had just taken a house at Guild, a place about seven miles from Katterley; though how she meant to pay expenses in it, she scarcely knew. "Well, Clara! here I am back again!" she exclaimed as she came in; "like a piece of bad money returned." "I am so glad to see you!" returned Mrs. Lake, in her warmth of courtesy, as she rose and brought forward a chair and rang the bell, and busied herself with other little signs of welcome. Mrs. Chester threw off her widow's bonnet and black silk mantle. Her well-formed face was pale in general, but the hot August sun made it red now. She was a little, restless woman, inclined to be stout, with shrewd grey eyes and brown hair, and a nose sharp at the end. The deep crape on her merino gown looked worn and shabby; her muslin collar and cuffs were tumbled. She told everybody she was twenty-eight; Mr. Lake knew her to be four-and-thirty. "Such a mess it makes of one, travelling in this heat and dust!" she exclaimed rather fretfully, as she shook out her skirts and pulled her collar here and there before the chimney-glass. "I've nothing but my bonnet-cap here; you won't mind it." It was a bit of plain muslin with a widow's gauffered border. Mrs. Chester untied the black strings of it as she turned round and fanned herself with her handkerchief. "Did the fish bring you back, Penelope?" asked Mr. Lake.