The toilet was at length completed, and in time for her to be handed in to dinner by Alexander, an honour which she owed to Beatrice having already been secured by Frederick, who was resolved not to be again abandoned to Jessie.  Alex did not favour her with much conversation, partly because he was thinking with perturbation of the task set him for the evening, and partly because he was trying to hear what Queen Bee was saying to Fred, in the midst of the clatter of knives and forks, and the loud voice of Mr. Roger Langford, which was enough to drown most other sounds.  Some inquiries had been made about Mrs. Geoffrey Langford and her aunt, Lady Susan St. Leger, which had led Beatrice into a great lamentation for her mother’s absence, and from thence into a description of what Lady Susan exacted from her friends.  “Aunt Susan is a regular fidget,” said she; “not such a fidget as some people,” with an indication of Mrs. Langford.  “Some people are determined to make others comfortable in a way of their own, and that is a fidget to be regarded with considerable respect; but Aunt Susan’s fidgeting takes the turn of sacrificing the comfort of every one else to her own and her little dog’s.”

“But that is very hard on Aunt Geoffrey,” said Fred.

“Frightfully.  Any one who was less selfish would have insisted on mamma’s coming here, instead of which Aunt Susan only complains of her sister and brother, and everybody else, for going out of London, when she may be taken suddenly ill at any time.  She is in such a nervous state that Mr. Peyton cannot tell what might be the consequence,” said Beatrice, in an imitative tone, which made Fred laugh.

“I am sure I should leave her to take care of herself,” said he.

“So do the whole family except ourselves; they are all worn out by her querulousness, and are not particularly given to patience or unselfishness either.  But mamma is really fond of her, because she was kind to her when she came home from India, and she manages to keep her quiet better than anyone else can.  She can very seldom resist mamma’s cheerful voice, which drives off half her nerves at once.  You cannot think how funny it is to see how Aunt Amelia always seems to stroke the cat the wrong way, and mamma to smooth her down the right.”

A lull in the conversation left these last words audible, and Mr. Langford said, “What is that about stroking the cat, Queenie?”

“O you are telling it all—­O don’t, Bee!” cried Willy.

And with certain jokes about cats and bags, which seemed excessively to discomfit Willy, who protested the cat was not in the bag at all—­it was the partridges—­the conversation drifted away again from the younger party.

As soon as dinner was over, Beatrice again disappeared, after begging her grandmamma to allow the great Indian screen to remain as it at present stood, spread out so as to cut off one end of the room, where there was a door opening into the study.  Behind this screen frequent rustlings were heard, with now and then a burst of laughing or whispering, and a sound of moving furniture, which so excited Mrs. Langford, that, starting up, she exclaimed that she must go and see what they were doing.