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Lord Hartledon, kind, affable, unaffected as ever was his brother Percival, shook hands with her heartily in the eyes of his guests before he said a word of welcome to them; and one of those guests, a remarkably broad woman, with a red face, a wide snub nose, and a front of light flaxen hair, who had stepped into the house leaning on her host's arm having, in fact, taken it unasked, and seemed to be assuming a great deal of authority turned round to stare at Mirrable, and screwed her little light eyes together for a better view.
Jones for her children and to tell the truth, she clothed them all, or they would have gone in rags Mirrable had shaken her cousin off long ago: which of course did not tend to soothe the naturally jealous spirit of Mrs. Jones. At Hartledon House she was not welcomed, and could not go there; but she watched for the visits of Mirrable at the clerk's, and was certain to intrude on those occasions.
She turned into the house, to the best parlour, where the clerk's wife was sitting with a visitor, Mirrable. Mrs. Gum, when she found what the commotion had been about, gave a sharp cry of terror, and shook from head to foot. "On our premises! Close to our house! That dreadful man! Oh, Lydia, don't you think you were mistaken?" "Mistaken!" retorted Mrs. Jones.
In the lonely part of the road near Hartledon, upon turning a sharp corner, he came upon Mirrable, who was standing talking to Pike, very much to the butler's surprise. Pike walked away at once; and the butler spoke. "He is not an acquaintance of yours, that man, Mrs. Mirrable?" "Indeed no," she answered, tossing her head. "It was like his impudence to stop me.
Help had been procured from Calne, and on the Friday evening several of the Hartledon servants arrived from the town-house. "None but a young man would have put us to such a rout," quoth Mirrable, in her privileged freedom; "my lord and lady would have sent a week's notice at least." But when Lord Hartledon arrived on the Saturday evening with his guests, Mirrable was ready for them.
"Secret?" repeated the clerk, whilst his wife gave a faint cry, and Mirrable turned her calm face on Mrs. Jones. "Have they a secret?" "Yes, they have," raved Mrs. Jones, giving vent to her long pent-up emotion. "If they haven't, I'm blind and deaf. If I have come into your house once during the past year and found Mrs. Mirrable in it, and the two sitting and whispering, I've come ten times.
"We hardly knew how to manage in it ourselves." "You wrote me word to take it. As to me, I can accommodate myself to any space. Where there's plenty of room, I take plenty; where there's not, I can put up with a closet. I have made Mirrable give me my old rooms here: you of course take Hart's now." "I am very tired," said Maude. "I think I will have some tea, and go to bed."
They were warmer for him than these." "Is he very ill, Mirrable?" "Very, I think," was the answer. "Of course he may get better; but it does not look like it." He was a tall, thin, handsome man, this young officer a year or two older than Maude, whom he greatly resembled.
"Capper said he had been suspected of firing the shot that killed my brother," he continued, in low tones. "Did you ever hear of such a hint, Mirrable?" Mirrable darted off to the fireplace, and began stirring the milk lest it should boil over. Her face was almost buried in the saucepan, or Mr.
"Then," said Mirrable, who never allowed herself to be put out by any earthly thing, and rarely argued against the stream, "as your ladyship has come here as sole mistress, perhaps you will yourself apportion the rooms to the guests." "Let them apportion them for themselves," cried the countess-dowager. "These three are mine; others manage as they can. It's Hartledon's fault.
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