Arbuthnot; the comparison with the bread seemed to her most
unpleasant.

"Oh, thank you--" said Mrs. Arbuthnot, sitting down rather
suddenly next to her.

There were only two places she could sit down in, the places laid
on either side of Mrs. Fisher. She therefore sat down in one, and Mrs.
Wilkins sat down opposite her in the other.

Mrs. Fisher was at the head of the table. Round her was grouped
the coffee and the tea. Of course they were all sharing San Salvatore
equally, but it was she herself and Lotty, Mrs. Arbuthnot mildly
reflected, who had found it, who had had the work of getting it, who
had chosen to admit Mrs. Fisher into it. Without them, she could not
help thinking, Mrs. Fisher would not have been there. Morally Mrs.
Fisher was a guest. There was no hostess in this party, but supposing
there had been a hostess it would not have been Mrs. Fisher, nor Lady
Caroline, it would have been either herself or Lotty. Mrs. Arbuthnot
could not help feeling this as she sat down, and Mrs. Fisher, the hand
which Ruskin had wrung suspended over the pots before her, inquired,
"Tea or coffee?" She could not help feeling it even more definitely
when Mrs. Fisher touched a small gong on the table beside her as though
she had been used to that gong and that table ever since she was
little, and, on Francesca's appearing, bade her in the language of
Dante bring more milk. There was a curious air about Mrs. Fisher,
thought Mrs. Arbuthnot, of being in possession; and if she herself had
not been so happy she would have perhaps minded.

Mrs. Wilkins noticed it too, but it only made her discursive
brain think of cuckoos. She would no doubt immediately have begun to
talk of cuckoos, incoherently, unrestrainably and deplorably, if she
had been in the condition of nerves and shyness she was in last time
she saw Mrs. Fisher. But happiness had done away with shyness--she was
very serene; she could control her conversation; she did not have,
horrified, to listen to herself saying things she had no idea of saying
when she began; she was quite at her ease, and completely natural. The
disappointment of not going to be able to prepare a welcome for Mrs.
Fisher had evaporated at once, for it was impossible to go on being
disappointed in heaven. Nor did she mind her behaving as hostess.
What did it matter? You did not mind things in heaven. She and Mrs.
Arbuthnot, therefore, sat down more willingly than they otherwise would
ha