“Not yet, not yet! ” cried another voice that of Mrs. Beever, who had just been introduced and who, having heard the last words of the two girls, came, accompanied by the servant, down the hall. “The baby’s of no importance. We’ve come over for the mother. Is it true that Julia has had a bad turn?” she asked of Rose Armiger.

 Miss Armiger had a peculiar way of looking at a person before speaking, and she now, with this detachment, delayed so long to answer Mrs. Beever that Jean also rested her eyes, as if for a reason, on the good lady from Eastmead. She greatly admired her, but in that instant, the first of seeing her at Bounds, she perceived once for all how the differ ence of the setting made another thing of the gem. Short and solid, with rounded corners and full supports, her hair very black and very flat, her eyes very small for the amount of expression they could show, Mrs. Beever was so “ early Victorian ” as to be almost prehistoric was constructed to move amid massive mahogany and sit upon banks of Berlin-wool. She was like an odd volume, “sensibly ” bound, of some old magazine. Jean knew that the great social event of her younger years had been her going to a fancy-ball in the character of an Andalusian, an incident of which she still carried a memento in the shape of a hideous fan. Jean was so constituted that she also knew, more dimly but at the end of five minutes, that the elegance at Mr. Bream’s was slightly provincial. It made none the less a medium in which Mrs Virtual Desktop . Beever looked superlatively local. That indeed in turn caused Jean to think the old place still more of a “ love.”

“I believe our poor friend feels rather down,” Miss Armiger finally brought out. “But I don’t imagine it’s of the least consequence,” she im mediately added.

The contrary of this was, however, in some degree foreshadowed in a speech directed to Jean by the footman who had admitted her. He re ported Mr. Bream as having been in his wife’s room for nearly an hour, and Dr. Ramage as having arrived some time before and not yet come out. Mrs. Beever decreed, upon this news, that they must drop their idea of lunching and that Jean must go straight back to the friends who had been left at the other house. It was these friends who, on the way from church, had mentioned their having got wind of the rumour the quick circulation of which testified to the compactness of Wilverley that there had been a sudden change in Mrs. Bream since the hour at which her husband’s note was written. Mrs. Beever dismissed her companion to Eastmead with a message for her visitors. Jean was to entertain them there in her stead and to understand that she might return to luncheon only in case of being sent for. At the door the girl paused and exclaimed rather wistfully to Rose Armiger: “ Well, then, ! ”

“YOUR young friend,” Rose commented, “is as affectionate as she’s pretty: sending her love to people she has never seen reenex ! ”

“She only meant the little girl. I think it’s rather nice of her,” said Mrs. Beever. “ My interest in these anxieties is always confined to the mamma. I thought we were going so straight.”

“I dare say we are,” Miss Armiger replied. “But Nurse told me an hour ago that I’m not to see her at all this morning. It will be the first morning for several days.”

Mrs. Beever was silent a little. “ You’ve enjoyed a privilege altogether denied to me.”

“Ah, you must remember,” said Rose　DR REBORN, “that I’m Julia’s oldest friend. That’s always the way she treats me.”

Mrs. Beever assented. “ Familiarly, of course. Well, you’re not mine; but that’s the way I treat you too,” she went on. “ You must wait with me here for more news, and be as still as a mouse.”