‘Not yet.’  Then, after a pause, ’I have generally gone to Mrs. Meadows after the morning service,’ he said, speaking with constraint.

‘You will take me?’ said Albinia.  ‘I wish it, I assure you.’

It was evidently what he wished her to propose, and he added, ’She must never feel herself neglected, and it will be better at once.’

‘So much more cordial,’ said Albinia.  ‘Pray let us go!’

They were interrupted by the voices of the girls—­not unpleasing voices, but loud and unsubdued, and with a slight tone of provincialism, which seemed to hurt Mr. Kendal’s ears, for he said, ’I hope you will tune those voices to something less unlike your own.’

As he spoke, the sisters appeared in the full and conscious rustling of new lilac silk dresses, which seemed to have happily carried off all Sophy’s sullenness, for she made much more brisk and civil answers, and ran across the room in a boisterous manner, when her father sent her to see whether Gilbert were up.

There was a great clatter, and Gilbert chased her in, breathless and scolding, but the tongues were hushed before papa, and no more was heard than that the tooth was better, and had not kept him awake.  Lucy seemed disposed to make conversation, overwhelming Albinia with needless repetitions of ‘Mamma dear,’ and plunging into what Mrs. Bowles and Miss Goldsmith had said of Mr. Dusautoy, and how he kept so few servants, and the butcher had no orders last time he called.  Aunt Maria thought he starved and tyrannized over that poor little sickly Mrs. Dusautoy.

Mr. Kendal said not one word, and seemed not to hear.  Albinia felt as if she had fallen into a whirlpool of gossip; she looked towards him, and hoped to let the conversation drop, but Sophy answered her sister, and, at last, when it came to something about what Jane heard from Mrs. Osborn’s Susan, Albinia gently whispered, ’I do not think this entertains your papa, my dear,’ and silence sank upon them all.

Albinia’s next venture was to ask about that which had been her Sunday pleasure from childhood, and she turned to Sophy, and said, ’I suppose you have not begun to teach at the school yet!’

Sophy’s great eyes expanded, and Lucy said, ’Oh dear mamma! nobody does that but Genevieve Durant and the monitors.  Miss Wolte did till Mr. Dusautoy came, but she does not approve of him.’

‘Lucy, you do not know what you are saying,’ said Mr. Kendal, and again there was an annihilating silence, which Albinia did not attempt to disturb.

At church time, she met the young ladies in the hall, in pink bonnets and sea-green mantillas over the lilac silks, all evidently put on for the first time in her honour, an honour of which she felt herself the less deserving, as, sensible that this was no case for bridal display, she wore a quiet dark silk, a Cashmere shawl, and plain straw bonnet, trimmed with white.