sily engaged with his letters. Lady Earle, in the
daintiest of morning toilets, was smiling over the pretty pink notes
full of fashionable gossip. Her delicate, patrician face looked clear
and pure in the fresh morning light. But there was no smile on Ronald's
face. He was wondering, for the hundredth time, how he was to tell his
father what he had done. He longed to be with his pretty Dora; and yet
there was a severe storm to encounter before he could bring her home.

"Ah," said Lady Earle, suddenly, "here is good news--Lady Charteris is
positively coming, Rupert. Sir Hugh will join her in a few days. She
will be here with Valentine tomorrow."

"I am very glad," said Lord Earle, looking up with pleasure and
surprise. "We must ask Lady Laurence to meet them."

Ronald sighed; his parents busily discussed the hospitalities and
pleasures to be offered their guests. A grand dinner party was
planned, and a ball, to which half the country side were to be invited.

"Valentine loves gayety," said Lady Earle, "and we must give her plenty
of it."

"I shall have all this to go through," sighed Ronald--"grand parties,
dinners, and balls, while my heart longs to be with my darling; and in
the midst of it all, how shall I find time to talk to my father? I
will begin this very day."

When dinner was over, Ronald proposed to Lord Earle that they should go
out on the terrace and smoke a cigar there. Then took place the
conversation with which our story opens, when the master of Earlescourt
declared his final resolve.

Ronald was more disturbed than he cared to own even to himself. Once
the words hovered upon his lips that he had married Dora. Had Lord Earl
been angry or contemptuous, he would have uttered them; but in the
presence of his father's calm, dignified wisdom, he was abashed and
uncertain. For the first time he felt the truth of all his father
said. Not that he loved Dora less, or repented of the rash private
marriage, but Lord Earle's appeal to his sense of the "fitness of
things" touched him.

There was little time for reflection. Lady Charteris and her daughter
were coming on the morrow. Again Lady Earle entered the field as a
diplomatist, and came off victorious.

"Ronald," said his mother, as they parted that evening, "I know that,
as a rule, young men of your age do not care for the society of elderly
ladies; I must ask you to make an exception in favor of Lady Charteris.
They showed me great kin