lind.

"It is only half-an-hour's drive, behind an animal like this," said his
new friend. "The frost is giving, so we may have a run with the
harriers in a few days. In the meantime there are a good many snipe.
We will have a crack at them to-morrow morning, if you like."

"I should like very much," replied Crawley.

The country they were driving through was not very picturesque, as it
wanted wood, a strange want for Suffolk; but they soon came to a lodge
with a gate, opened for them by a curtseying woman, and admitting them
to a park where there were trees, and fine ones, though standing about
by themselves, not grouped together. They spun along through this up to
a large white house with a colonnade in front, and a terrace, with urns
for flowers and statues all along it, looking bare and cheerless enough
at this time of year. But the hall made amends when they entered it,
for it was warm, luxurious, and bright enough for a sitting-room. Two
footmen in plush and with slightly powdered hair inhabited it, and one
of them helped Crawley to get rid of his wraps, and then Gould led the
way to the drawing-room, where Mrs Gould and three daughters were
drinking tea and eating muffins and things, for fear they should have
too good appetites for dinner, I suppose, and introduced him.

Crawley shook several hands and accepted a cup of tea, and sat down on a
very low and very soft seat, which he could have passed the night in
luxuriously if beds had run short, and felt as awkward as you please.
He always was shy in ladies' society. Not in that of his sisters, of
course; he patronised them and made them fag for him. It was certainly
their own fault if they did not like it, for they had taught him. But
they did like it, he being one of his sort, and not often at home, and
in return he waltzed with them, which was a bore, and gave them easy
service at lawn-tennis, which made him slow, and was generally an
amiable young Turk.

But the Misses Gould did not look like being fagged, rather the reverse.
They were all grown up, at least to look at, though one was not yet
"out." Clarissa, the next, a girl of eighteen, came and sat down by him
and talked to him, for which he felt very grateful, for he was beginning
to wish the floor to open and let him through. At first, indeed, she
talked of things he knew nothing about: balls, and levees, and the four-
in-hand club, and the Orleans. But finding the service was too severe,