d two is more than a match for one. I dare say he has had no
chance between you."

"Make yourself quite easy," said Phoebe, with her sweetest smile; "he was
only one of a party. Mr. Reginald May and Mr. Northcote are both very
pleasant companions. Your son is bored sometimes, but the rest of us are
never bored. You see, he has been accustomed to more brilliant society;
but as for us, we have no particular pretensions. We have been very
happy. And if there has been two to one, it has been the other way."

"I think I must let your people know of your gaieties, Miss Phoebe. If
your mother sent you here, I don't doubt it was for a purpose, eh? She
knows what she's about, and she won't like it if she knows you are
fritting away your chances and your attentions. She has an eye for
business, has Mrs. Beecham," said the leading member, with a laugh.

"You cannot tell mamma more about me than she knows already," said
Phoebe, with rising colour.

And by this time every one else at table was uncomfortable. Even
Clarence, who had a dull appreciation of his father's jokes when they
were not levelled at himself, and who was by no means indisposed to
believe that "girls," generally, were "after him," and that even in this
particular case Phoebe herself might have come to Carlingford on purpose
to complete his conquest, even Clarence was moved.

"I don't know what you mean by brilliant society," he said. "I know I'm
the dull one among you clever people. I don't say much, but I know it
all the same; and it's awfully good of you to pull me through all that
music. I don't begrudge you your laugh after. Is my mother coming over,
sir, to see the place?"

"To see what? There is not much in the place," said Mr. Copperhead.
"You're coming back with me, my boy. I hope it won't inconvenience you,
May. I've other views for him. Circumstances alter cases, you know. I've
been turning it over in my head, and I think I can see my way to another
arrangement."

"That, of course, is entirely in your own hands," said Mr. May, with a
cheerfulness he did not feel. His heart sank, but every rule of good
society made it incumbent upon him to show no failure at such a moment.
"Copperhead, see that your father has some wine. Well, I suppose our
poor little Carlingford is not much of a place; no trade, no movement,
no manufactures--"

"The sort of place that should be cleared off the face of the earth,"
said the millionnaire; "meaning no offence, of co