Out of an upper window, surveying the new guests, surveying the carriage being driven away by the groom to the nearest inn, was the head of Mrs. Chester; her cap off, her hair untidy, a cross look in her wondering eyes. Who were they, these people, interrupting her at that unseasonable hour? Strange to say, the truth did not strike her. They were underneath the windows, and she could take her survey at leisure. Lady Ellis, quite capable of doing the honours of reception, ushered them into the drawing-room through the open window. At the same moment Anna Chester came forward in her poor frock and with her sweet face. Mr. Thornycroft had laid a card on the table, and she glanced at it in passing. Her manners were calm, self-possessed, gentle; an essentially ladylike girl in spite of the frock. "I will tell mamma that you are here," she said, when they were seated; and she quitted the room again. "Had I seen that young lady first, I should not have committed the mistake of taking you for Mrs. Chester," spoke Mr. Thornycroft in his gallantry. Lady Ellis smiled. "That young lady is not Mrs. Chester's daughter, however. Mrs. Chester's children are considerably younger." Anna meanwhile was going upstairs. Mrs. Chester, doing something to the inside of a bed, had her black dress covered with fluff, and her hair also. She turned sharply round when Anna entered. "Mamma, it is Justice Thornycroft." What with the startling announcement--for Mrs. Chester took in the news at once--and what with the recollection of her own state of attire, Mrs. Chester turned her irritability upon Anna. It was provoking thus to be interrupted at her very necessary work. "_Justice_ Thornycroft! What in the world possesses you to call the man that, Anna Chester?" "Mrs. Copp called him so in her letter to me, mamma." "Mrs. Copp's a fool," retorted the bewildered lady. "Justice Thornycroft! One would think you had been bred in a wood. Who do you suppose uses those obsolete terms now? What brings him here today?" She put the question in a sharp, exacting tone, just as if it were Anna's business to answer it, and Anna's fault that he had come. Anna quietly went to a closet and took out Mrs. Chester's best gown. "To come on a Saturday! Nothing was ever so unreasonable," groaned Mrs. Chester. "Here's all the flock and the down out of the bed, and I covered with it. Look at my crape! Look at my hair! I took off my cap because those bothering lappets got in my way." "You will have your gown changed in two minutes, mamma, and I will smooth your hair." Mrs. Chester jerked the gown out of Anna's hands. One of those active, restless women, who cannot bear to be still while anything is done for them, was she; and began to put it on herself, grumbling all the while.