"Oh dear, yes; they are devoted to each other, and he thinks everything
she does quite perfect. But then he is very different from most men; he
thinks so little about eating, and he takes everything so easy; I don't
think he cares what strange people Cecilia asks to the house."

"Strange people!"

"Well; strange people to have on a visit. Invalids and--people that have
nowhere else they could go to."

"Do you mean poor people from the East End?"

"Oh no; some of them are quite rich. She had an idiot there with his
mother once who was heir to a very large fortune in the Colonies
somewhere; but of course nobody else would have had them, and I think
it must have been very uncomfortable. And then once she actually had a
woman who had taken to drinking. I did not see her, I am thankful to
say, but there was a deformed person once staying there, I saw him being
wheeled about the garden. It was very unpleasant. I think people like
that should always live shut up."

There was a little pause, and then Lady Atherley added--

"Cecilia has never been the same since her baby died. She used to have
such a bright colour before that. He was not quite two years old, but
she felt it dreadfully; and it was a great pity, for if he had lived he
would have come in for all the Stowell property."

The door opened.