e best kind. Very likely as he
walked on to the great house over whose threshold lay the answer to the
enigma of months, his mind gradually filled with some naive young dream
of winning the squire, playing him with all sorts of honest arts,
beguiling him back to life--to his kind.

Those friendly messages of his through Mrs. Darcy had been very
pleasant.

'I wonder whether my Oxford friends have been doing me a good turn with
the squire,' he said to Rose, laughing. 'He knows the provost, of
course. If they talked me over it is to be hoped my scholarship didn't
come up. Precious little the provost used to think of my abilities for
Greek prose!'

Rose yawned a little behind her gloved hand. Robert had already talked a
good deal about the squire, and he was certainly the only person in the
group who was thinking of him. Even Catherine, absorbed in other
anxieties, had forgotten to feel any thrill at their approaching
introduction to the man who must of necessity mean so much to herself
and Robert.

* * * * *

'Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elsmere,' said the butler, throwing open the carved
and gilded doors.

Catherine--following her husband, her fine grave head and beautiful neck
held a little more erect than usual--was at first conscious of nothing
but the dazzle of western light which flooded the room, striking the
stands of Japanese lilies, and the white figure of a clown in the famous
Watteau opposite the window.

Then she found herself greeted by Mrs. Darcy, whose odd habit of holding
her lace handkerchief in her right hand on festive occasions only left
her two fingers for her guests. The mistress of the Hall--as diminutive
and elf-like as ever in spite of the added dignity of her sweeping silk
and the draperies of black lace with which her tiny head was
adorned--kept tight hold of Catherine, and called a gentleman standing
in a group just behind her.

'Roger, here are Mr. and Mrs. Robert Elsmere. Mr. Elsmere, the squire
remembers you in petticoats, and I'm not sure that I don't too.'

Robert, smiling, looked beyond her to the advancing figure of the
squire, but if Mr. Wendover heard his sister's remark he took no notice
of it. He held out his hand stiffly to Robert, bowed to Catherine and
Rose before extending to them the same formal greeting, and just
recognised Langham as having met him at Oxford.

Having done so he turned back to the knot of people with whom he had
been engaged