"So I see those odious Grahams are coming," said Mark, ill-humoredly, as he met his elder sister in the hall. "I declare, if it were not that Maitland might chance to arrive in my absence, I 'd set off this very morning."
"I assure you, Mark, you are all wrong; the girls are no favorites of mine; but looking to the staple of our other guests, the Grahams are perfect boons from Heaven. The Warrens, with their infant school, and Mrs. Maxwell, with her quarrel with the bishop, and the Masseys, with their pretension about that daughter who married Lord Claude Somebody, are so terribly tiresome that I long for the racket and noise of those bustling young women, who will at least dispel our dulness."
"At all events, they are Jolly and good-tempered girls. We have known them for--"
"Oh, don't say how long. The younger one is two years older than myself."
"No, Mark, Beck is exactly your own age."
"Then I 'm determined to call myself five-and-thirty the first opportunity I have. She shall have three years tacked to her for the coming into the world along with me."
"Only! the idea of saying _only_ to thirty-four."
"They don't look within eight or nine years of it, I declare. I suppose you will scarcely detect the slightest change in them."
"So much the worse. Any change would improve them, in my eyes."
"And the Captain, too. He, I believe, is now Commodore."
"I perceive there is no change in the mode of travel," said Mark, pointing to the trunks. "The heavy luggage used always to arrive the day before they drove up in their vile Irish jaunting-car. Do they still come in that fashion?"
"Yes; and I really believe with the same horse they had long, long ago."
"A flea-bitten mare with a twisted tail?"
"The very same," cried she, laughing. "I'll certainly tell Beck how well you remember their horse. She 'll take it as a flattery."
"Tell her what you like; she'll soon find out how much flattery she has to expect from _me!_" After a short pause, in which he made two ineffectual attempts to light a cigar, and slightly burned his fingers, he said, "I 'd not for a hundred pounds that Maitland had met them here. With simply stupid country gentry, he 'd not care to notice their ways nor pay attention to their humdrum habits; but these Grahams, with all their flagrant vulgarity, will be a temptation too irresistible, and he will leave this to associate us forever in his mind with the two most ill-bred women in creation."