Mrs Bradshaw sighed and bemoaned herself in all her leisure moments, which were not many, and wondered why their house was to be turned into an inn for this Mr Donne, when everybody knew that the George was good enough for the Cranworths, who never thought of asking the electors to the Hall;--and they had lived at Cranworth ever since Julius Caesar's time, and if that was not being an old family, she did not know what was.

The excitement soothed Jemima.

There was something to do.

It was she who planned with the upholsterer; it was she who soothed Betsy into angry silence; it was she who persuaded her mother to lie down and rest, while she herself went out to buy the heterogeneous things required to make the family and house presentable to Mr Donne and his precursor--the friend of the parliamentary agent.

This latter gentleman never appeared himself on the scene of action, but pulled all the strings notwithstanding.