At this point Mina became sensible of no more than the vaguest visions, not at all convincing even to herself. By a sad deficiency of imagination, she could give no definiteness to a picture of Harry Tristram making love. He had never, to her mind, looked like it with Janie Iver, even while he had purported to be doing it. He never looked like it at all, not even as though he could do it. Stay, though! That new way of his, which she had marked when he came up the hill to thank her for the flowers, was an exception. But the new way had been for his mother's sake. Now a man cannot be in love with his mother. The question grew more puzzling, more annoying, more engrossing still. While full of these problems, refusing indeed to be anything else, Mina was surprised by a visit from Miss Swinkerton, who sought a subscription for the scheme of which an inadequate account has already been given. Miss Swinkerton (for some reason she was generally known as Miss S., a vulgar style of description possessing sometimes an inexplicable appropriateness) was fifty-five, tall and bony, the daughter of a Rear-Admiral, the sister of an Archdeacon. She lived for good works and by gossip. Mina's sovereign (foreigners will not grasp the cheap additional handsomeness of a guinea) duly disbursed, conversation became general--that is to say, they talked about their neighbors. "A hard young man," said Miss S. (Why be more genteel than her friends?) "And if Janie Iver thinks he's in love with her----" "What do you mean by being in love, Miss Swinkerton?" Miss Swinkerton had always been rather surprised, not to say hurt, when the Catechism asked for an explanation of what she meant by the Lord's Prayer. This question of Mina's was still more uncalled for. "You know enough English, my dear----" "It's not a question of English," interrupted Mina, "but of human nature, Miss Swinkerton." "When I was a girl there were no such questions." "What about Lady Tristram, then?" There was flattery in this, ten or fifteen years of flattery. Miss S. was unmoved. "I am happy to say that Lady Tristram never called at Seaview." Miss S.'s house was called Seaview--Sea-Backview would have been a more precise description. "I call him in love with Janie Iver. He must want to marry her or----" "They do say that money isn't very plentiful at Blent. And there'll be the Death Duties, you know." "What are they?" asked Mina. "Like stamps," explained Miss S., vaguely. "For my part, I think it's lucky he is what he is. There's been enough of falling in love in the Tristram family. If you ask me who is in love with her, of course it's poor young Broadley. Well, you know that, as you're always driving up to Mingham with her." "We've only been three or four times, Miss Swinkerton."