When the hostess at length appeared, she rose with deliberation, her lips just relaxed in a half-smile.
"So it is really you!" exclaimed Mrs.Lashmar, in a voice of forced welcome.

"I thought you must have altogether forgotten us." "It's the first time I have returned to Alverholme," replied the other, in a contrasting tone of calmness.
"And what are you doing?
Where are you living?
Tell me all about yourself.

Are you still at the hospital?
You did get a place at a hospital, I think?
We were told so." Mrs.Lashmar's patronage was a little more patronizing than usual, her condescension one or two degrees more condescending.

She had various reasons for regarding Constance Bride with disapproval, the least of them that sense of natural antipathy which was inevitable between two such women.

In briefest sentences Miss Bride made known that she had given up dispensing two years ago, and was now acting as secretary to a baronet's widow.
"A baronet's widow ?" repeated the hostess, with some emphasis of candid surprise.