Having heard that she was quite ready to see us, we paid our visit. I wondered how she would receive me, and my suspense amounted almost to excitement as I reached the door. A moment more, and I could not believe that Lady Lorrimer and the woman who so resembled her were the same. Nothing could be more affectionate than Lady Lorrimer. She received us with a very real welcome, and so much pleasure in her looks, tones, and words. She was not, indeed, looking well, but her spirits seemed cheerful. She embraced mamma, and kissed her very fondly; then she kissed me over and over again. I was utterly puzzled, and more than doubted the identity of this warm-hearted, affectionate woman with the person who had chosen to cut me with such offensive and sinister persistence. "See how this pretty creature looks at me!" she said to mamma, laughing, as she detected my conscious scrutiny. I blushed and looked down; I did not know what to say. "I'm very much obliged to you, dear, for looking at me, so few people do now-a-days; and I was just going to steal a good look at you, when I found I was anticipated. I have just been saying to your mamma that I have ordered a boat, and we must all have a sail together on the lake after dinner; what do you say?" Of course I was delighted; I thought the place perfectly charming. "I lived the earlier part of my life here," she resumed, "and so did your mamma, you know--when she was a little girl, and until she came to be nineteen or twenty--I forget which you were, dear, when you were married?" she said, turning to mamma. "Twenty-two," said mamma, smiling. "Twenty-two? Really! Well, we lived at Mardykes. I'll point out the place on the water when we take our sail; you can't see it from these windows." "And where does Sir Harry Rokestone live?" I asked. "You can't see that either from these windows. It is further than Mardykes, at the same side. But we shall see it from the boat." Then she and mamma began to talk, and I went to the window and looked out. Lady Lorrimer, with all her airs of conventual seclusion, hungered and thirsted after gossip; and whenever they met, she learned all the stories from mamma, and gave her, in return, old scandal and ridiculous anecdotes about the predecessors of the people with whose sayings, doings, and mishaps mamma amused her. Two o'clock dinners, instead of luncheons, were the rule in this part of the world. And people turned tea into a very substantial supper, and were all in bed and asleep before the hour arrived at which the London ladies and gentlemen are beginning to dress for a ball. You are now to suppose us, on a sunny evening, on board the boat that had been moored for some time at the jetty opposite the door of the "George and Dragon." We were standing up the lake, and away from the Golden Friars shore, towards a distant wood, which they told me was the forest of Clusted.