at
neighbourhood was. Yes, a fourth time the bell clanged. Fanny brought
the present announcement to the drawing-room,--

"Mrs. Sykes and the three Misses Sykes."

When Caroline was going to receive company, her habit was to wring her
hands very nervously, to flush a little, and come forward hurriedly yet
hesitatingly, wishing herself meantime at Jericho. She was, at such
crises, sadly deficient in finished manner, though she had once been at
school a year. Accordingly, on this occasion, her small white hands
sadly maltreated each other, while she stood up, waiting the entrance of
Mrs. Sykes.

In stalked that lady, a tall, bilious gentlewoman, who made an ample and
not altogether insincere profession of piety, and was greatly given to
hospitality towards the clergy. In sailed her three daughters, a showy
trio, being all three well-grown, and more or less handsome.

In English country ladies there is this point to be remarked. Whether
young or old, pretty or plain, dull or sprightly, they all (or almost
all) have a certain expression stamped on their features, which seems to
say, "I know--I do not boast of it, but I _know_ that I am the standard
of what is proper; let every one therefore whom I approach, or who
approaches me, keep a sharp lookout, for wherein they differ from me--be
the same in dress, manner, opinion, principle, or practice--therein they
are wrong."

Mrs. and Misses Sykes, far from being exceptions to this observation,
were pointed illustrations of its truth. Miss Mary--a well-looked,
well-meant, and, on the whole, well-dispositioned girl--wore her
complacency with some state, though without harshness. Miss Harriet--a
beauty--carried it more overbearingly; she looked high and cold. Miss
Hannah, who was conceited, dashing, pushing, flourished hers consciously
and openly. The mother evinced it with the gravity proper to her age and
religious fame.

The reception was got through somehow. Caroline "was glad to see them"
(an unmitigated fib), hoped they were well, hoped Mrs. Sykes's cough was
better (Mrs. Sykes had had a cough for the last twenty years), hoped the
Misses Sykes had left their sisters at home well; to which inquiry the
Misses Sykes, sitting on three chairs opposite the music-stool, whereon
Caroline had undesignedly come to anchor, after wavering for some
seconds between it and a large arm-chair, into which she at length
recollected she ought to induct Mrs. Sykes--and indeed that lady sav