She said to herself that she had better have been
watching her son.

Meanwhile she was quite aware of the slight sounds from the hall which
heralded the approaching visitors. The footman threw the door open; and
she rose.

There came in, with hurrying steps, a little lady in widow's dress, her
widow's veil thrown back from her soft brown hair and childish face.
Behind her, a tall girl in white, wearing a shady hat.

The little lady held out a hand--eager but tremulous.

"I _hope_, Lady Tatham, we are not intruding? We know it isn't
correct--indeed we are quite aware of it--that we should call upon you
first. But then we know your son--he is such a charming young man!--and
he asked us to come. I don't think Lydia wanted to come--she always wants
to do things properly. No, indeed, she didn't want to come. It's all my
doing. I persuaded her."

"That was very kind of you," said Lady Tatham as she shook hands first
with the mother, and then with the silent daughter. "Oh, I'm a dreadful
neighbour. I confess it in sackcloth and ashes. I ought to have called
upon you long ago. I don't know what to say. I'm incorrigible! Please
will you sit down, and will you have some tea? My son will be here
directly."

But instead of sitting down Mrs. Penfold ran to the window, exclaiming on
the beauty of the view, the garden, the trees, and the bold profile of
the old keep, thrown forward among the flowers. There was nothing the
least distinguished in her ecstasy. But it flowed and bubbled with
perfect sincerity; and Lady Tatham did not dislike it at all.

"A lady"--she thought--"quite a lady, though rather a goose. The daughter
is uncomfortable."

And she glanced at the slightly flushed face of Lydia, who followed in
their wake, every now and then replying, as politeness demanded, to some
appeal from her mother. It was indeed clear that the visit had been none
of her doing.

Grace?--personality?--Lady Tatham divined them, from the way the girl
moved, from the look in her gray-blue eyes, from the carriage of her
head. She was certainly pretty, with that proud virginal beauty which
often bears itself on the defensive, in our modern world where a certain
superfluity of women has not tended to chivalry. But how little
prettiness matters, beside the other thing!--the indefinable,
irresistible something--which gives the sceptre and the crown! All the
time she was listening to Mrs. Penfold's chatter, and the daughter's
occasional words