and turned
away.

Mrs. Warrender was much fluttered by the announcement of this visit.
She had expected no doubt to meet Lady Markland very soon, to pay her
perhaps a solemn visit, to receive her so to speak as a member of the
family, which had been an alarming thought. For Lady Markland, though
always grateful to her, and on one or two occasions offering something
that looked like a close, confidential friendship, had been always a
great lady in the opinion of the squire's wife, a more important person
than herself, intimacy with whom would carry embarrassments with it.
She had not been even, like other people in her position, familiarly
known in the society of the county. Her seclusion during her husband's
lifetime, the almost hermit life she led, the pity she had called forth,
the position as of one apart from the world which she had maintained,
all united to place Lady Markland out of the common circle on a little
eminence of her own. She had been very cordial especially on the last
evening they had spent together, the summer night when she had come to
fetch Geoff. But still they had never been altogether at their ease
with Lady Markland. Mrs. Warrender went back into the drawing-room, and
looked round upon it with eyes more critical than when she had regarded
it in relation to herself, wondering if Lady Markland would think it a
homely place, a residence unworthy her future husband's mother. She made
some little changes in it instinctively, put away the work on which
she had been engaged, and looked at Chatty's little workbox with an
inclination to put that too out of the way. The rooms at Markland were
not so fine as to make such precautions necessary; yet there was a faded
splendour about them very different from the limitation and comfortable
prim neatness of this. When she had done all that it was possible to do,
she sat down to wait for her visitor, trying to read though she could
not give much attention to what she read. "Lady Markland is to be here
at three," she said to Chatty, who was slightly startled for a moment,
but much less than her mother, taking a strip of muslin out of her box,
and beginning to work at it as if this was the business of life and
nothing else could excite her more. The blinds were all drawn down for
the sunshine, and the light came in green and cool though everything was
blazing out-of-doors. These lowered blinds made it impossible to see
the arrival though Mrs. Warrender heard it a