Richard obeyed, and not a word was spoken until the man appeared. “Wilkins,” said his master, “go to my lady, and say I beg the favour of her presence in the library for a moment.” The man went. “No antipathy to cats, I hope!” he added, turning to Richard. “None, sir,” answered Richard gravely. “That's good! Then you won't lie taken aback!” In a few minutes--she seldom made her husband wait--lady Ann sailed into the room, the servant closing the door so deftly behind her, that it seemed without moving to have given passage to an angelic presence. The two younger men rose. “Mr. Wingfold you know, my lady!” said her husband. “I have not the pleasure,” answered lady Ann, with a slight motion of the hard bud at the top of her long stalk. “Ah, I thought you did!--The Reverend Mr. Wingfold, lady Ann!--My wife, Mr. Wingfold!--The other gentleman, lady Ann.--” He paused. Lady Ann turned her eyes slowly on Richard. Wingfold saw a slight, just perceptible start, and a settling of the jaws. “The other gentleman,” resumed the baronet, “you do not know, but you will soon be the best of friends.” “I beg your pardon, sir Wilton, I do know him!--I hope,” she went on, turning to Richard, “you will keep steadily to your work. The sooner the books are finished, the better!” Richard smiled, but what he was on the point of saying, his father prevented. “You mistake, my lady! I thought you did not know him!” said the baronet. “That gentleman is my son, and will one day be sir Richard.” “Oh!” returned her ladyship--without a shadow of change in her impassivity, except Wingfold was right in fancying the slightest movement of squint in the eye next him. She held out her hand. “This is an unexpected--” For once in her life her lips were truer than her heart: they did not say _pleasure_. Richard took her hand respectfully, sad for the woman whose winter had no fuel, and who looked as if she would be cold to all eternity. Lady Ann stared him in the eyes and said,-- “My favourite prayer-book has come to pieces at last: perhaps you would bind it for me?” “I shall be delighted,” answered Richard. “Thank you,” she said, bowed to Wingfold, and left the room. Sir Wilton sat like an offended turkey-cock, staring after her. “By Jove!” he seemed to say to himself. “There! that's over!” he cried, coming to himself. “Ring the bell, Richard, and let us have lunch.--Richard, _no_ gentleman could have behaved better! I am proud of you!--It's blood that does it!” he murmured to himself. As if he had himself compounded both his own blood and his boy's in the still-room of creation, he took all the credit of Richard's _savoir faire_, as he counted it. He did not know that the same thing made Wingfold happy and Richard a gentleman! Richard had had a higher breeding than was known to sir Wilton. At the court of courts, whence the manners of some other courts would be swept as dust from the floors, the baronet would hardly gain admittance!