The little house with the white-framed windows looked at her with a
sleepy wakefulness from under its blinds, and made no sign. Beyond the
corner was a glimpse of lawn, a rank of delphiniums, and the sound of a
wheel-barrow.

"Clarence!" the lady called again.

Clarence, with an air of exceeding his duties, decided to hear,
descended slowly, and came to the door.

"Very likely--if you were to look for a bell, Clarence...."

Clarence regarded the porch with a hostile air, made no secret that he
thought it a fool of a porch, seemed on the point of disobedience, and
submitted. His gestures suggested a belief that he would next be asked
to boil eggs or do the boots. He found a bell and rang it with the
needless violence of a man who has no special knowledge of ringing
bells. How was _he_ to know? he was a chauffeur. The bell did not so
much ring as explode and swamp the place. Sounds of ringing came from
all the windows, and even out of the chimneys. It seemed as if once set
ringing that bell would never cease....

Clarence went to the bonnet of his machine, and presented his stooping
back in a defensive manner against anyone who might come out. He wasn't
a footman, anyhow. He'd rung that bell all right, and now he must see to
his engine.

"He's rung so _loud!_" said the lady weakly--apparently to God.

The door behind the neat white pillars opened, and a little red-nosed
woman, in a cap she had evidently put on without a proper glass,
appeared. She surveyed the car and its occupant with disfavour over her
also very oblique spectacles.

The lady waved a pink paper to her, a house-agent's order to view. "Is
this Black Strands?" she shouted.

The little woman advanced slowly with her eyes fixed malevolently on the
pink paper. She seemed to be stalking it.

"This is Black Strands?" repeated the tall lady. "I should be so sorry
if I disturbed you--if it isn't; ringing the bell like that--and all.
You can't think----"

"This is Black _Strand_," said the little old woman with a note of deep
reproach, and suddenly ceased to look over her glasses and looked
through them. She looked no kindlier through them, and her eye seemed
much larger. She was now regarding the lady in the car, though with a
sustained alertness towards the pink paper. "I suppose," she said,
"you've come to see over the place?"

"If it doesn't disturb anyone; if it is quite convenient----"

"Mr. Brumley is _hout_," said the little old woman. "