usband was evidently held by his family.

Very soon a heterogeneous post-prandial repast was announced for the
benefit of the travellers; to which Mr. Harper graciously bade them
retire--even leading his daughter-in-law to the dining-room door.

"He'll not come further in," whispered Mrs. Dugdale, who made herself
most active about Agatha. "You arrived at seven, and my father would
as soon think of changing his six o'clock dinner hour as he would of
changing his politics; for all Duke says to the contrary."

Agatha was not sorry, since the idea of dining under the elaborate
kindness and dignified courtliness of old Mr. Harper was rather
alarming. Besides, she was so hungry!

The moment her father-in-law had closed the door, the sisters came
gathering like bees round herself and her husband, Mary busy over every
possible physical want, Harrie, sitting at, or rather, on the table. She
had a wild and not ungraceful way of throwing herself about--rattling on
like a very Major Harper in petticoats, and flinging away _bon mots_ and
witty sayings enough to make the fortune of many a "wonderfully clever
woman,"--the very last character which this light-spirited country-lady
would probably have imagined her own. For Eulalie, she had relaxed
into a few words, and fewer smiles, the quality of neither being of
sufficient value to make one regret the quantity. Nobody minded her much
but Mary, who was motherly, kind, and reverential always to the inane
beauty.

Such were Agatha's first impressions of her new sisters. With a shyness
not unnatural she had taken little notice of her husband. He had chatted
among his sisters, with whom he seemed very popular: but always in the
intervals of talk the pale, grave, tired look came over him.

In quitting the dining-room--where Agatha, irresistibly led on by Mrs.
Dugdale's pleasantness, had begun to feel quite at home, and had laughed
till she was fairly tired out--he said, in a half whisper:

"Now, dear, I think we ought to go and see Elizabeth."

In the confusion of her arrival, Agatha had forgotten that there was
another sister--in truth, the Miss Harper of the family--Mary, its head
and housekeeper, being properly only "Miss Mary." She noticed that as
Nathanael spoke, the other three looked at him and herself doubtfully,
as if to inquire how much she knew--and anxiously, as though there
were something painful and uncomfortable in a stranger's first seeing
Elizabeth.

Mrs. Harper