He determined, however, to be on the safe side.
"Our genial Archdeacon," he said, "and his distinguished kinsman, Sir Charles?
Ah! yes--yes--indeed--to be sure--with the greatest pleasure." And he motioned the blushing Theresa to fall into step with him, and with Dr.Horniblow, at the head of the Deadham procession.
The afterglow of that triumphal progress irradiated her consciousness still, when--after depositing the Miss Minetts upon their own doorstep, with playful last words recalling the day's mild jokes and rallyings--she drove on to The Hard to find the household there in a state of sombre and most admired confusion.
Thus to arrive home in possession of a fine bag of news, only to discover an opposition and far finer bag ready awaiting you may well prove trying to the most high-souled and amiable of temper.

By this time, between success and fatigue, Theresa could not be justly described as either high-souled or sweet tempered.

She was at once inflated and on edge, and consequently hotly indignant, as though the unfairest march possible had been stolen upon her.
She bustled upstairs, and crossing the landing turned into the schoolroom passage--a long, lamp-lit vista, hung with old Chinese wall-paper, the running pattern of buds and flowers, large out of all proportion to the bridges, palms, pagodas and groups of little purple and blue-clad men and women disposed, in dwindling perspective, upon its once white surface.
Half-way along the passage, their backs towards her, Mary and Mrs.
Cooper, the cook--a fair, mild middle-aged, and cow-like person, of ample proportions--stood conversing in smothered tones.
"And it's my belief he's been and told her, or anyhow that she guesses, pore dear young lady," the latter, with upraised hands, lamented.
Theresa just caught these strange words.

Caught too, Mary's hurried rejoinder--"For mercy's sake, Mrs.Cooper, not a hint of that to any living soul"-- before the two women, sensible of the swish and patter of her self-important entry, turned and moved forward to meet, or--could it be ?--to intercept her.

Their faces bore a singular expression, in Mrs.
Cooper's case of sloppy, in Mary's of stern yet vivid alarm.