CHAPTER III

At a manor not far away there lived a queer and primitive couple who had
lately been blessed with a son and heir. The christening took place
during the week under notice, and this had been followed by a feast to
the parishioners. Christine's father, one of the same generation and
kind, had been asked to drive over and assist in the entertainment, and
Christine, as a matter of course, accompanied him.

When they reached Athelhall, as the house was called, they found the
usually quiet nook a lively spectacle. Tables had been spread in the
apartment which lent its name to the whole building--the hall
proper--covered with a fine open-timbered roof, whose braces, purlins,
and rafters made a brown thicket of oak overhead. Here tenantry of all
ages sat with their wives and families, and the servants were assisted in
their ministrations by the sons and daughters of the owner's friends and
neighbours. Christine lent a hand among the rest.

She was holding a plate in each hand towards a huge brown platter of
baked rice-pudding, from which a footman was scooping a large spoonful,
when a voice reached her ear over her shoulder: 'Allow me to hold them
for you.'

Christine turned, and recognized in the speaker the nephew of the
entertainer, a young man from London, whom she had already met on two or
three occasions.

She accepted the proffered help, and from that moment, whenever he passed
her in their marchings to and fro during the remainder of the serving, he
smiled acquaintance. When their work was done, he improved the few words
into a conversation. He plainly had been attracted by her fairness.

Bellston was a self-assured young man, not particularly good-looking,
with more colour in his skin than even Nicholas had. He had flushed a
little in attracting her notice, though the flush had nothing of
nervousness in it--the air with which it was accompanied making it
curiously suggestive of a flush of anger; and even when he laughed it was
difficult to banish that fancy.

The late autumn sunlight streamed in through the window panes upon the
heads and shoulders of the venerable patriarchs of the hamlet, and upon
the middle-aged, and upon the young; upon men and women who had played
out, or were to play, tragedies or tragi-comedies in that nook of
civilization not less great, essentially, than those which, enacted on
more central arenas, fix the attention of the world. One of the party
was a cousi