ilver_ tea-pot, mind!"

It might have been inferred from her manner that she and Lady Harriet
were on terms of closest friendship, but this was not exactly the case.
Mrs. Stimpson had indeed known her for a considerable time, but only by
sight, and she had long ceased to consider a visit from Lady Harriet as
even a possible event. Now it had actually happened, and,
providentially, on an afternoon when Mitchell's cap and apron could defy
inspection. But if it was the first time that an Earl's daughter had
crossed Mrs. Stimpson's threshold, she was not at all the woman to allow
the fact to deprive her of her self-possession.

A title had no terror for _her_. Before her marriage, when she was Miss
Selina Prinsley, she had acted as hostess for her father, the great
financier and company promoter, who had entertained lavishly up to the
date of his third and final failure. Her circle then had included many
who could boast of knighthoods, and even baronetcies!

And, though Lady Harriet was something of a personage at Gablehurst, and
confined her acquaintance to her own particular set, there was nothing
formidable or even imposing in her appearance. She was the widow of a
Colonel Elmslie, and apparently left with only moderate means, judging
from the almost poky house on the farther side of the Common, which she
shared with an unmarried female cousin of about her own age.

So, when she was shown in, looking quite ordinary, and even a little
shy, Mrs. Wibberley-Stimpson rose to receive her with perfect ease,
being supported by the consciousness that she was by far the more
handsomely dressed of the two. In fact her greeting was so gracious as
to be rather overpowering.

"Interrupting me? Not in the very _least_, dear Lady Harriet! Only too
delighted, I'm sure!... Now _do_ take off your boa, and come nearer the
fire. You'll find this _quite_ a comfy chair, I think. Tea will be
brought in presently.... Oh, you really _must_, after trapesing all that
way across the Common. I can't _tell_ you how pleased I am to see you.
I've so often wished to make your acquaintance, but I couldn't take the
first step, could I? _So_ nice of you to break the ice!"

Lady Harriet submitted to these rather effusive attentions resignedly
enough. She could hardly interrupt her hostess's flow of conversation
without rudeness, while she had already begun to suspect that Mrs.
Stimpson might form an entertaining study.

But her chief reason, after all