The bishop reconsidered his plate.

"But what things?" he said.

"She says we get all round her," said Lady Ella, and left the
implications of that phrase to unfold.

(9)


For a time the bishop said very little.

Lady Ella had found it necessary to make her first announcement standing
behind him upon the hearthrug, but now she sat upon the arm of the great
armchair as close to him as possible, and spoke in a more familiar tone.

The thing, she said, had come to her as a complete surprise. Everything
had seemed so safe. Eleanor had been thoughtful, it was true, but it had
never occurred to her mother that she had really been thinking--about
such things as she had been thinking about. She had ranged in the
library, and displayed a disposition to read the weekly papers and the
monthly reviews. But never a sign of discontent.

"But I don't understand," said the bishop. "Why is she discontented?
What is there that she wants different?"

"Exactly," said Lady Ella.

"She has got this idea that life here is secluded in some way," she
expanded. "She used words like 'secluded' and 'artificial' and--what was