eople in the trade--they know all about it."

"When you have seen the Manor--" Lady Sarah began impressively, but
Lacey--who had been, the moment before, in lamentable difficulties
between a yawn and a smile--cut in:

"Ah, now when shall she come and see the Manor?"

Lady Sarah was prepared with an invitation for the next day: that was
another of the forms, to be carried out precisely, as Fillingford had
undertaken. She turned to Jenny. "You've seen it, of course, Miss
Driver?"

Jenny nodded serenely. Amyas flushed again--his fair skin betrayed every
passing feeling--as he said, "We shall be delighted if we can induce
Miss Driver to come, all the same."

"Oh, very delighted, very, I'm sure," agreed Lady Sarah.

"You'll enjoy showing it to Margaret all by yourself much better," said
Jenny to Amyas. "I'll come another day soon, and have tea with Lady
Sarah, if she'll let me."

"Very delighted, very," Lady Sarah repeated.

She rose to take leave; this time she did herself kiss Margaret on the
cheek. I think we were all waiting to see whether, in her opinion, the
terms of the treaty demanded a kiss for Jenny also. Lady Sarah decided
in the negative; Jenny's particularly erect head, as she held out her
hand, may have aided--and certainly welcomed--the conclusion. We
escorted her to her carriage with most honorable ceremony. Then we
sighed relief--save Chat, who had been, from a modest background, an
admiring spectator of the scene. "She's not very effusive," said Chat,
"but she has the grand manner, hasn't she, Mr. Austin?"

"I never knew what it really meant till to-day, Miss Chatters."

"She probably never hated anything so much in her whole life," Jenny
remarked to me, when we were next alone together, "so it's really hardly
fair to criticise her manner. But I rejoice from the bottom of my heart
that she didn't think it necessary to kiss me."

"Since you escaped this time, I should think you might escape
altogether."

"Well, the wedding day will be a point of danger," she reminded me, "but
I'm pretty safe against its becoming habitual. We both hate the idea of
it too much for that."

Then--a week later--came the public announcement, made duly and in due
form in the _Times and Herald_: "Between Lord Lacey, son and heir of the
Right Honorable the Earl of Fillingford, and Margaret, daughter of the
late Leonard Octon, Esq." The sensation is not to be described. So many
things were explained, so many mysteries