Madam's dress this morning was a striped lilac silk of amazing rustle and richness. Letting it all out behind her, she went down the stairs and through the hall, sweeping the dust along in a little cloud. Mr. North was not in his parlour; madam went about looking for him.
To her surprise she found him in the drawing-room; it was not often he ventured into that exclusive place. He had a shabby long coat on, and a straw hat. Madam's scornful head went up when she saw him there.
"What do you want?" she asked in a tone that plainly said he had about as much right in the room as an unwelcome stranger.
"I have come to beg some cotton of Matilda to tie up these flowers," was Mr. North's answer. "Thomas Hepburn's little boy is here, and I thought I'd give the child a posy."
"A posy!" repeated madam, scorning the homely term.
"I have no cotton," said Matilda, who lay back in a chair, reading. "What should bring cotton in a drawing-room?"
"Oh well--I can bind it with a piece of variegated grass," said Mr. North with resignation. "I'm sorry to have troubled you, Matilda."
"And when you have disposed of your 'posy,' I am coming to your parlour," said madam.
Mr. North groaned as he went out. He knew that his peace was about to be destroyed for the day. There were moments when he thought heart and brain must give way under home worries and madam's.
"When did this come?" enquired madam, pointing to a letter that was placed upright on the mantelpiece: one addressed to Richard North, in her son Arthur's writing.