recount the morsels of local intelligence they had heard during the morning.  When they had said all that they had to say (and not before), they had always to listen to a short homily from her ladyship on the well-worn texts,—­the poorness of conversation about persons,—­the probable falsehood of all they had heard, and the degradation of character implied by its repetition.  On one of these November evenings they were all assembled in Lady Cumnor’s room.  She was lying,—­all draped in white, and covered up with an Indian shawl,—­on a sofa near the fire.  Lady Harriet sate on the rug, close before the wood-fire, picking up fallen embers with a pair of dwarf tongs, and piling them on the red and odorous heap in the centre of the hearth.  Lady Cuxhaven, notable from girlhood, was using the blind man’s holiday to net fruit-nets for the walls at Cuxhaven Park.  Lady Cumnor’s woman was trying to see to pour out tea by the light of one small wax-candle in the background (for Lady Cumnor could not bear much light to her weakened eyes); I and the great leafless branches of the trees outside the house kept sweeping against the windows, moved by the wind that was gathering.

It was always Lady Cumnor’s habit to snub those she loved best.  Her husband was perpetually snubbed by her, yet she missed him now that he was later than usual, and professed not to want her tea; but they all knew that it was only because he was not there to hand it to her, and be found fault with for his invariable stupidity in forgetting that she liked to put sugar in before she took any cream.  At length he burst in.

’I beg your pardon, my lady,—­I’m later than I should have been, I know.  Why, haven’t you had your tea yet?’ he exclaimed, bustling about to get the cup for his wife.

‘You know I never take cream before I’ve sweetened it,’ said she, with even more emphasis on the ‘never’ than usual.

’To be sure!  What a simpleton I am!  I think I might have remembered it by this time.  You see I met old Sheepshanks, and that’s the reason of it.’

‘Of your handing me the cream before the sugar?’ asked his wife.  It was one of her grim jokes.

’No, no! ha, ha!  You’re better this evening, I think, my dear.  But, as I was saying, Sheepshanks is such an eternal talker, there’s no getting away from him, and I had no idea it was so late!’

’Well, I think the least you can do is to tell us something of Mr Sheepshanks’ conversation now you have torn yourself away from him.’

’Conversation! did I call it conversation?  I don’t think I said much.  I listened.  He really has always a great deal to say.  More than Preston, for instance.  And, by the way, he was telling me something about Preston;—­old Sheepshanks thinks he’ll be married before long,—­he says there’s a great deal of gossip going on about him and Gibson’s daughter.  They’ve been caught meeting in the park, and corresponding, and all that kind of thing that is likely to end in a marriage.’