He had had his doubts as to the reception of Lady Milborough, and was, to tell the truth, listening with most anxious ear, when her ladyship was announced.

His wife, however, was not so bitterly contumacious as to refuse admittance to his friend, and he heard the rustle of the ponderous silk as the old woman was shown up-stairs.

When Lady Milborough reached the drawing-room, Mrs.Trevelyan was alone.
"I had better see her by myself," she had said to her sister.
Nora had then left her, with one word of prayer that she would be as little defiant as possible.
"That must depend," Emily had said, with a little shake of her head.
There had been a suggestion that the child should be with her, but the mother herself had rejected this.
"It would be stagey," she had said, "and clap-trap.

There is nothing I hate so much as that." She was sitting, therefore, quite alone, and as stiff as a man in armour, when Lady Milborough was shown up to her.
And Lady Milborough herself was not at all comfortable as she commenced the interview.

She had prepared many wise words to be spoken, but was not so little ignorant of the character of the woman with whom she had to deal, as to suppose that the wise words would get themselves spoken without interruption.