ple."

"You mean he's the same sort of person as Mr. Hannay?"

"I should say he was, if anything, worse."

"You mean he's a bad man?"

"Well--"

"So bad that you won't have him in the house?"

"Well, dear, you know we are particular." (A singularity that she shared
with Johnson.)

"So am I," said Anne.

"And this," she said to herself, "is the man whom Edie's fond of,
Walter's dearest friend. And my friends won't have him in their house."

"Charming, I believe, and delightful," said Mrs. Eliott, "but perhaps a
little dangerous on that account. And one has to draw the line. I want to
know about you, dear. You're well, though you're so thin?"

"Oh, very well."

"And happy?" (She ventured on it.)

"Could I be well if I weren't happy? How's Mrs. Gardner?"

The thought of happiness called up a vision of the perpetually radiant
bride.

"Oh, Mrs. Gardner, she's as happy as the day is long. Much too happy, she
says, to go about paying calls."

"_I_ haven't called much, have I?" said Anne, hoping that her friend
would draw the suggested inference.

"No, you haven't. _You_ ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"Why I any more than Mrs. Gardner? But I am."

Mrs. Eliott perceived her blunder. "Well, I forgive you, as long as
you're happy."

Anne kissed her more tenderly than usual as they said good-bye, so
tenderly that Mrs. Eliott wondered "Is she?"

Majendie was late that afternoon, and Anne had an hour alone with Edith.
She had made up her mind to speak seriously to her sister-in-law on the
subject of Mr. Gorst, and she chose this admirable opportunity.

"Edith," said she with the abruptness of extreme embarrassment, "did you
know that Lady Cayley had come back?"

"Come back?"

"She's here, living in Scale."

There was a pause before Edith answered. Anne judged from the quiet of
her manner that this was not the first time that she had heard of the
return.

"Well, dear, after all, if she is, what does it matter? She must live
somewhere."

"I should have thought that for her own sake it was a pity to have chosen
a town where she was so well known."

"Oh well, that's her own affair. I suppose she argues that most people
here know the worst; and that's always a comfort."

"Oh, for all they appear to care--" Her face became tragic, and she lost
her unnatural control. "I can't understand it. I never saw such people.
She's received as if nothing had happened."

"By her own people. It's decent of the