not possess a single comfort, and
that it was deficient in most of those details which, in point of
house accommodation, are necessary to the very existence of man.
Consequently the mansion was sold, and Miss Dunstable was the
purchaser. Cranbourn House it had been named, and its present owner
had made no change in this respect; but the world at large very
generally called it Ointment Hall, and Miss Dunstable herself as
frequently used that name for it as any other. It was impossible to
quiz Miss Dunstable with any success, because she always joined in
the joke herself. Not a word further had passed between Mrs. Gresham
and Dr. Thorne on the subject of their last conversation; but the
doctor as he entered the lady's portals amongst a tribe of servants
and in a glare of light, and saw the crowd before him and the crowd
behind him, felt that it was quite impossible that he should ever be
at home there. It might be all right that a Miss Dunstable should
live in this way, but it could not be right that the wife of Dr.
Thorne should so live. But all this was a matter of the merest
speculation, for he was well aware--as he said to himself a dozen
times--that his niece had blundered strangely in her reading of Miss
Dunstable's character.

When the Gresham party entered the ante-room into which the staircase
opened, they found Miss Dunstable standing there surrounded by a few
of her most intimate allies. Mrs. Harold Smith was sitting quite
close to her; Dr. Easyman was reclining on a sofa against the wall,
and the lady who habitually lived with Miss Dunstable was by his
side. One or two others were there also, so that a little running
conversation was kept up in order to relieve Miss Dunstable of the
tedium which might otherwise be engendered by the work she had in
hand. As Mrs. Gresham, leaning on her husband's arm, entered the
room, she saw the back of Mrs. Proudie, as that lady made her way
through the opposite door, leaning on the arm of the bishop. Mrs.
Harold Smith had apparently recovered from the annoyance which she
must no doubt have felt when Miss Dunstable so utterly rejected her
suit on behalf of her brother. If any feeling had existed, even for a
day, calculated to put a stop to the intimacy between the two ladies,
that feeling had altogether died away, for Mrs. Harold Smith was
conversing with her friend, quite in the old way. She made some
remark on each of the guests as they passed by, and apparently did
so i