have known her sit for half an hour
ever so uncomfortable, because she would not disturb the cat."

"Then she must be a fool, my dear," said Mrs Mackenzie.

"She isn't a fool, mamma; I'm quite sure of that," said Susanna.

Miss Mackenzie went on to the Cedars, and her mind almost misgave her
in going there, as she was driven up through the dull brick lodges,
which looked as though no paint had touched them for the last thirty
years, up to the front door of the dull brick house, which bore
almost as dreary a look of neglect as the lodges. It was a large
brick house of three stories, with the door in the middle, and three
windows on each side of the door, and a railed area with a kitchen
below the ground. Such houses were built very commonly in the
neighbourhood of London some hundred and fifty years ago, and they
may still be pleasant enough to the eye if there be ivy over them,
and if they be clean with new paint, and spruce with the outer care
of gardeners and the inner care of housemaids; but old houses are
often like old ladies, who require more care in their dressing than
they who are younger. Very little care was given to the Cedars, and
the place therefore always looked ill-dressed. On the right hand as
you entered was the dining-room, and the three windows to the left
were all devoted to the hall. Behind the dining-room was Sir John's
study, as he called it, and behind or beyond the hall was the
drawing-room, from which four windows looked out into the garden.
This might have been a pretty room had any care been taken to make
anything pretty at the Cedars. But the furniture was old, and the
sofas were hard, and the tables were rickety, and the curtains which
had once been red had become brown with the sun. The dinginess of
the house had not struck Miss Mackenzie so forcibly when she first
visited it, as it did now. Then she had come almost direct from
Arundel Street, and the house in Arundel Street had itself been very
dingy. Mrs Stumfold's drawing-rooms were not dingy, nor were her own
rooms in the Paragon. Her eye had become accustomed to better things,
and she now saw at once how old were the curtains, and how lamentably
the papers wanted to be renewed on the walls. She had, however, been
drawn from the neighbouring station to the house in the private
carriage belonging to the establishment, and if there was any sense
of justice in her, it must be presumed that she balanced the good
things with the bad.