There's the door that
opens at the end of the passage by her mamma's room. She's been that
way, and that's the reason, I suppose. There ain't no other, I'm
sure."

"One likes to hear one's friends if one can't see them; that's all."

"To be sure one does. I remember as how when I had the measles--I was
living with my lady's mother, as maid to the young ladies. There was
four of 'em, and I dressed 'em all--God bless 'em. They've all got
husbands now and grown families--only there ain't one among 'em equal
to our Miss Madeline, though there's some of 'em much richer. When
my lady married him,--the judge, you know,--he was the poorest of
the lot. They didn't think so much of him when he came a-courting in
those days."

"He was only a practising barrister then."

"Oh yes; he knew well how to practise, for Miss Isabella--as she was
then--very soon made up her mind about him. Laws, Mr. Graham, she
used to tell me everything in them days. They didn't want her to
have nothing to say to Mr. Staveley at first; but she made up her
mind, and though she wasn't one of them as has many words, like Miss
Furnival down there, there was no turning her."

"Did she marry at last against their wish?"

"Oh dear, no; nothing of that sort. She wasn't one of them flighty
ones neither. She just made up her own mind and bided. And now I
don't know whether she hasn't done about the best of 'em all. Them
Oliphants is full of money, they do say--full of money. That was
Miss Louisa, who came next. But, Lord love you, Mr. Graham, he's so
crammed with gout as he can't ever put a foot to the ground; and as
cross;--as cross as cross. We goes there sometimes, you know. Then
the girls is all plain; and young Mr. Oliphant, the son,--why he
never so much as speaks to his own father; and though they're rolling
in money, they say he can't pay for the coat on his back. Now our Mr.
Augustus, unless it is that he won't come down to morning prayers and
always keeps the dinner waiting, I don't think there's ever a black
look between him and his papa. And as for Miss Madeline,--she's the
gem of the four families. Everybody gives that up to her."

If Madeline's mother married a barrister in opposition to the wishes
of her family--a barrister who then possessed nothing but his
wits--why should not Madeline do so also? That was of course the line
which his thoughts took. But then, as he said to himself, Madeline's
father had been one of the handsomest men of hi