Miss Mackenzie smirked and smiled, and assured Miss Todd that she was very glad to see her. The allusion to the Popes she did not understand.

“Miss Baker came with Mrs Stumfold, didn’t she?” continued Miss Todd. “She doesn’t go much anywhere now without Mrs Stumfold, unless when she creeps down to me. She and I are very old friends. Have you known Mr Stumfold long? Perhaps you have come here to be near him; a great many ladies do.”

In answer to this, Miss Mackenzie explained that she was not a follower of Mr Stumfold in that sense. It was true that she had brought a letter to him, and intended to go to his church. In consequence of that letter, Mrs Stumfold had been good enough to call upon her.

“Oh yes: she’ll come to you quick enough. Did she come with her carriage and horses?”

“I think she was on foot,” said Miss Mackenzie.

“Then I should tell her of it. Coming to you, in the best house in the Paragon, on your first arrival, she ought to have come with her carriage and horses.”

“Tell her of it!” said Miss Mackenzie.

“A great many ladies would, and would go over to the enemy before the month was over, unless she brought the carriage in the meantime. I don’t advise you to do so. You haven’t got standing enough in the place yet, and perhaps she could put you down.”

“But it makes no difference to me how she comes.”

“None in the least, my dear, or to me either. I should be glad to see her even in a wheelbarrow for my part. But you mustn’t suppose that she ever comes to me. Lord bless you! no. She found me out to be past all grace ever so many years ago.”

“Mrs Stumfold thinks that Aunt Sally is the old gentleman himself,” said the elder of the girls.

“Ha, ha, ha,” laughed the aunt. “You see, Miss Mackenzie, we run very much into parties here, as they do in most places of this kind, and if you mean to go thoroughly in with the Stumfold party you must tell me so, candidly, and there won’t be any bones broken between us. I shan’t like you the less for saying so: only in that case it won’t be any use our trying to see much of each other.”

Miss Mackenzie was somewhat frightened, and hardly knew what answer to make. She was very anxious to have it understood that she was not, as yet, in bond under Mrs Stumfold—that it was still a matter of choice to herself whether she would be a saint or a sinner; and she would have been so glad to hint to her neighbour that she would like to try the sinner’s line, if it were only for a month or two; only Miss Todd frightened her! And when the girl told her that Miss Todd was regarded, ex parte Stumfold, as being the old gentleman himself, Miss Mackenzie again thought for an instant that there would be safety in giving way to the evangelico-ecclesiastical influence, and that perhaps life might be pleasant enough to her if she could be allowed to go about in couples with that soft Miss Baker.