dam and her
granddaughter, Rhoda, sipping tea.

Madam--and nothing else, her dependants would have thought it an
impertinence to call her Mrs Furnival. Never was Empress of all the
Russias more despotic in her wide domain than Madam in her narrow one.

As to Mr Furnival--for there had been such a person, though it was a
good while since--he was a mere appendage to Madam's greatness--useful
in the way of collecting rents and seeing to repairs, and capable of
being put away when done with. He was a little, meek, unobtrusive man,
fully (and happily) convinced of his own insignificance, and ready to
sink himself in his superb wife as he might receive orders. He had been
required to change his name as a condition of alliance with the heiress
of Cressingham, and had done so with as much readiness as he would in
similar circumstances have changed his coat. It was about fourteen
years since this humble individual had ceased to be the head servant of
Madam; and it was Madam's wont to hint, when she condescended to refer
to him at all, that her marriage with him had been the one occasion in
her life wherein she had failed to act with her usual infallibility.

It had been a supreme disappointment to Madam that both her children
were of the inferior sex. Mrs Catherine to some extent resembled her
father, having no thoughts nor opinions of her own, but being capable of
moulding like wax; and like wax her mother moulded her. She married,
under Madam's orders, at the age of twenty, the heir of the neighbouring
estate--a young gentleman of blood and fortune, with few brains and
fewer principles--and died two years thereafter, leaving behind her a
baby daughter only a week old, whom her careless father was glad enough
to resign to Madam, in order to get her out of his way.

The younger of Madam's daughters, despite her sister's passive
obedience, had been the mother's favourite. Her obedience was by no
means passive. She inherited all her mother's self-will, and more than
her mother's impulsiveness. Much the handsomer of the two, she was
dressed up, flattered, indulged, and petted in every way. Nothing was
too good for Anne, until one winter day, shortly after Catherine's
marriage, when the family assembled round the breakfast table, and Anne
was found missing. A note was brought to Madam that evening by one of
Mr Peveril's under-gardeners, in which Anne gaily confessed that she
had taken her destiny into her own hands, an