Lydia walked into the house, and put her head into the drawing-room.

"Sorry, mother! It was so lovely, I couldn't come in. And I met a dear
old shepherd I know. Don't bother about me. I'll get some milk and cake."

She closed the door again, before her mother could protest.

"Girls will never think of their meals!" said Mrs. Penfold to herself in
irritation. "And then all of a sudden they get nerves--or consumption--or
something."

As she spoke, she withdrew from the window, and curled herself up on a
sofa, where a knitted coverlet lay, ready to draw over her feet. Mrs.
Penfold was a slight, pretty woman of fifty with invalidish Sybaritic
ways, and a character which was an odd mixture of humility and
conceit--diffidence and audacity. She was quite aware that she was not as
clever as her daughters. She could not write poetry like Susan, or paint
like Lydia. But then, in her own opinion, she had so many merits they
were without; merits which more than maintained her self-respect, and
enabled her to hold her ground with them. For instance: by the time she
was four and twenty, Lydia's age, she had received at least a dozen
proposals. Lydia's scalps, so far as her mother knew, were only
two--fellow-students at South Kensington, absurd people, not to be
counted. Then, pretty as Lydia was, her nose could not be compared for
delicacy with her mother's. "My nose was always famous"--Mrs. Penfold
would say complacently to her daughters--"it was that which first
attracted your dear father. 'It was,' he said--you know he always
expressed himself so remarkably--'such a sure sign of "race."' His own
people--oh! they were quite nice people--but quite middle-class." Again,