"On the contrary, I think her remarkably clever; she gets what she wants,
and the cleverest of us can do no more. It is a well-known fact to all
Helen's acquaintances that not to ask Captain Kynaston to meet her would
be deliberately to insult her--she expects it as her right."

"All the same, it is in very bad taste and excessively underbred of her.
However, I should ask Captain Kynaston in any case, for his mother's
sake, and because I like him. He is a good shot, too, and the coverts
must be shot that week. Who next?"

"Mr. Herbert Pryme."

"Goodness me! Beatrice, what makes you think of _him_? We don't know
anything about him--where he comes from or who are his belongings--he is
only a nobody!"

"He is a barrister, mamma!"

"Yes, of course, I know that--but, then, there are barristers of all
sorts. I am sure I do not know what made you fix upon him; you only met
him two or three times in town."

"I liked him," said Beatrice, carelessly; "he is a gentleman, and would
be a pleasant man to have in the house."

Her mother looked at her sharply. She was playing with the gold locket
round her neck, twisting it backwards and forwards along its chain, her
eyes fixed upon the heap of cards on her lap. There was not the faintest
vestige of a blush upon her face.

"However," she continued, "if you don't care about having him, strike his
name out. Only it is a pity, because Sophy Macpherson is rather fond of
him, I fancy."

This was a lie; it was Miss Beatrice herself who was fond of him, but not
even her mother, keen and quick-scented as she was, could have guessed it
from her impassive face. Mrs. Miller was taken in completely.

"Oh," she said, "if Sophy Macpherson likes him, that alters the case. Oh,
yes, I will ask him by all means--as you say, he is a gentleman and
pleasant."

"Look, mamma!" exclaimed Beatrice, suddenly; "there is uncle Tom riding
up the drive."

Now, Tom Esterworth was a very important personage; he was the present
head of the Esterworth family, and, as such, the representative of its
ancient honours and traditions. He was a bachelor, and reigned in
solitary grandeur at Lutterton Castle, and kept the hounds as his
fathers had done before him.

Uncle Tom was thought very much of at Shadonake, and his visits always
caused a certain amount of agitation in his sister's mind. To her dying
day she would be conscious that in Tom's eyes she had been guilty of a
_mesalliance_. She never could