"No; I have only got my own resources to look to, and my own headpiece to work upon. It has been ransacked pretty well of late, I can tell you. The first idea that suggested itself to me was to educate Fanny at home with Anna Chester's help, and to get half-a-dozen pupils as well, on the plan of a private family. But I hated the thought of it. I have no nerves and no patience; and I knew I should be worried out of my very existence. Besides, education gets more fantastical every day, and I am not up to the modern rubbish they call requirements: so I said, 'That won't do.' Next I thought of getting three or four gentlewomen to live with me, on the plan of a private family. Quite as visitors, you know; and the longer I dwelt on the scheme the better I liked it. I thought it would be a pleasant, social way of getting on; and I determined to carry it out. Now you know why I have taken a large house, and am putting it into good order." "That is, you are going to take boarders?" "If you choose to put it in that plain way. You are so very downright, Robert. Lady Ellis is the first coming." "How did you hear of her?" "Never you mind," returned Mrs. Chester, who did not choose to say she had advertised. "Friends are looking out for me in London and elsewhere. I have had some correspondence with Lady Ellis, and she comes to me the middle of next week. She wants quiet, she says--quiet and country air. A most exquisite little hand she writes, only you can't read it at sight." "Have you references?" "Of course. She referred me to some people in London, and also in Cheltenham, where she is now staying. In her last letter she mentioned that the Jupps of Katterley knew her, and that's the chief thing that brought me over today. Mind, Robert, I did not tell the Jupps she was coming to me as a boarder: only as a visitor. 'She writes me that you know her,' I carelessly said to the girls, and they immediately began to tell all they did know, as I knew they would." "What did they say?" "Well, the whole of it did not amount to much. At first they persisted they had never heard of her, till I said she was formerly a Miss Finch, having lost sight of her when she went to India. They are charmed to hear she has come back Lady Ellis, and think it will be delightful for me to have her with me." "Unless you can get more boarders, Lady Ellis will prove a source of expense to you, Penelope, instead of a profit." "You can't teach me," retorted Mrs. Chester. "I mean to get more." "What is she to pay you?" "Well, you know, Robert, I can't venture upon much style at first, wanting the means. I am unable to set up men-servants, and a service of plate, and a pony carriage, and that sort of thing: so at present my terms must be in accordance with my accommodation. Now what should you think fair?" "I? Oh, nonsense! Don't ask me."