, he was always frightened
out of his life when I said that. But we have had a very narrow escape
of being blighted beings to the end of our lives. If it hadn't been for
uncle Tom and that dear darling mare, Clochette, whom I should like
to keep in a gold and jewelled stall to the end of her ever-blessed
days!----Ah, well! I've no time to tell you now--I will come over to
Sutton to-morrow, and I may bring him, may I not?"

"Him," of course, meaning Mr. Herbert Pryme. Vera requested that he might
be brought by all means.

"Well, I must run away now--there are at least a hundred of these stupid
people to whom I must go and make myself agreeable. By the way, Vera, how
dull you look, up in this corner by yourself. Why do you sit here all
alone?"

"My head aches; I am glad to be quiet."

"But you mean to dance by-and-by, I hope?"

"Oh, yes, I daresay. Go back to your guests, Beatrice; I am getting on
very well."

Beatrice went off smiling and waving her hand. Vera could watch her
outside in the sunshine, moving about from group to group, shaking hands
with first one and then another, laughing at some playful sally, or
smiling demurely over some graver words of kindness. She was always
popular, was Beatrice, with her bright talk and her plain clever face,
and there was not a man or woman in all that crowd who did not wish her
happiness.

And so the day wore away, and the polo match--very badly played--was
over, and the votaries of lawn-tennis were worn out with running up and
down, and the flowers and the fruits in the show-tent began to look
limp and dusty. The farmers and those people of small importance who had
only been invited "from two to five," began now to take their departure,
and their carriage wheels were to be heard driving away in rapid
succession from the front door. Then the hundred or so of the "best
county people," who were remaining later for the dancing, began to think
of leaving the lawns before the dew fell. There was a general move
towards the house, and even the band "limbered up," and began to transfer
itself from the garden into the hall, where its labours were to begin
afresh.

Then it was that Vera crept forth out of her sheltered corner, and,
unseen and unnoticed save by one watchful pair of eyes, wended her way
through the shrubbery walks in the direction of the Bath.

CHAPTER XXXV.

SHADONAKE BATH.

A jolly place--in times of old,
But something ails it now:
The spot i