CHAPTER VIII.
NOBODY ELSE LOOKED THE LEAST LIKE THE BERTRAMS.
It was the fashion to be punctual at Northbury, and when Catherine, Mabel and Loftus Bertram arrived about ten minutes past seven at the Gray House they found the pleasant old drawing-room already full of eager and expectant guests.
Beatrice would have preferred meeting her new friends without any ceremony in the garden, but Mrs.Meadowsweet was nothing if she was not mistress of her own house, and she decided that it would be more becoming and _comme il faut_ to wait in the drawing-room for the young visitors.
Accordingly Mrs.Meadowsweet sat in her chair of state.

She wore a rose-colored silk dress, and a quantity of puffed white lace round her neck and wrists; and a cap which was tall and stiff, and had little tufts of yellow ribbon and little rosettes of Maltese lace adorning it, surmounted her large, full-blown face.

That face was all beams and kindliness and good-temper, and had somehow the effect of making people forget whether Mrs.Meadowsweet was vulgar or not.
She sat in her chair of state facing the garden, and her visitors, all on the tip-toe of expectation, stationed themselves round her.

The Bells had taken possession of the Chesterfield sofa.

By sitting rather widely apart they managed to fill it; they always looked alike.