“I believe so,” replied Cecil.  “Charnock always seems my right name.”

“And you have all the right to retain it that Mrs. Poynsett had to keep hers,” said Lady Tyrrell, as they went up-stairs to her bedroom.  “How is she?”

“As usual, thank you; always on the sofa.”

“But managing everything from it?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Never was there such a set of devoted sons, models for the neighbourhood.”

Cecil felt a sense of something chiming in with her sources of vexation, but she only answered, “They are passionately fond of her.”

“Talk of despotism!  Commend me to an invalid!  Ah! how delightfully you contrive to keep your hair in order!  I am always scolding Lenore for coming in dishevelled, and you look so fresh and compact!  Here is my sanctum.  You’ll find Mrs. Duncombe there.  She drove over in the drag with her husband on their way to Backsworth.  I am so glad you came, there is so much to talk over.”

“If our gentlemen will give us time,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “but I am afraid your senator will not be as much absorbed in the dogs as my captain.”

“I did not come with my husband,” said Cecil; “he is gone to Willansborough to meet the architect.”

“Ah, about the new buildings.  I do hope and trust the opportunity will not be wasted, and that the drainage will be provided for.”

“You are longing to have a voice there,” said Lady Tyrrell, laughing.

“I am.  It is pre-eminently a woman’s question, and this is a great opportunity.  I shall talk to every one.  Little Pettitt, the hair-dresser, has some ground there, and he is the most intelligent of the tradesmen.  I gave him one of those excellent little hand-bills, put forth by the Social Science Committee, on sanitary arrangements.  I thought of asking you to join us in ordering some down, and never letting a woman leave our work-room without one.”

“You couldn’t do better, I am sure,” said Lady Tyrrell; “only, what’s the use of preaching to the poor creatures to live in good houses, when their landlords won’t build them, and they must live somewhere?”

“Make them coerce the landlords,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “that’s the only way.  Upheave the masses from beneath.”

“But that’s an earthquake,” said Cecil.

“Earthquakes are sometimes wholesome.”

“But the process is not so agreeable that we had not rather avert it,” said Lady Tyrrell.

“All ours at Dunstone are model cottages,” said Cecil; “it is my father’s great hobby.”

“Squires’ hobbies are generally like the silver trough the lady gave her sow,” said Mrs. Duncombe; “they come before the poor are prepared, and with a spice of the autocrat.”

“Come, I won’t have you shock Mrs. Charnock Poynsett,” said Lady Tyrrell.  “You illogical woman!  The poor are to demand better houses, and the squires are not to build them!”