The word ‘neighbours’ made Mary start, and she had not time to realise that she was about to get rid of them, when the door was suddenly pushed open, and Mrs. Renton’s maid appeared with her shawls, and her cushions, and her knitting. ‘Mrs. Renton is coming down immediately,’ said the woman; and on this, to Mary’s bewilderment, her visitors sat down again. She was driven to her wits’ end. To leave them to encounter poor Mrs. Renton was like bringing the lamb to an interview with the wolf. ‘May I ask you to come to the library?’ she said, hurriedly. ‘My aunt is a great invalid, and sees no visitors. Pray forgive me for asking you;--this way,’ and rushed to the door before them. But the fates were against poor Mary on that unfortunate day. ‘We have made quite a visitation already,’ said Mrs. Tracy, and got up again to shake hands. As for Millicent, though she had been so angry, she took Mary’s two hands again; and, stooping over her, gave her another kiss. And all these operations took time, and, before they had made any progress towards their departure, Mrs. Renton came in, and received with some astonishment the curtsies and salutations of the unknown guests. ‘Pray don’t hurry away because I have come. I am always so glad when Mary has her friends to see her,’ Mrs. Renton said, with the sweetest amiability; ‘do sit down, pray.’ The mother and daughter waited for no second invitation. They put themselves on either side of Mrs. Renton, as they had done off Mary; and thus a kind of introduction had to be performed most unwillingly by the victim, who felt that her cause was lost. ‘Mrs. Rich!’ said the lady of the house, gathering up her wools,--‘that must be a relation of the Riches of Richmont. Oh, yes; we know them very well,--that is, they are very good sort of people, I am sure. When my son Frank was at Royalborough, he used to go to see them. All the officers do, I believe; and he made me call. Oh, yes, of course, I understand,--the son who died. Poor thing! your daughter is a very young widow.’ This was aside to Mrs. Tracy, who had already volunteered to arrange the cushions in Mrs. Renton’s chair. ‘Not much more than a child,’ said that astute mother; ‘and left so poorly off, after all! You may suppose, Mrs. Renton, if I had not thought it would be a very good marriage in point of money, I should never have sacrificed my child to the son of a man in the City. I would rather have starved. And then it turned out he had not half what he was supposed to have. People that do those sort of things should be punished,’ Mrs. Tracy said, with fire in her eye. ‘Indeed, that is my opinion,’ said Mrs. Renton; ‘but I always thought the Riches were rolling in money.’ And then she made a little internal reflection that, perhaps, on the whole, Frank had not done so very much amiss.