o, but not Dawn.
Ernest's face went down, Eweword's brightened.

"Miss Dawn is not coming over now, but later on," I said.

The men's glances reversed once more. As the former and I
departed--Ernest carrying a wrap for me--I heard Eweword say--

"Well, come on, Dawn, you're not going to Grosvenor's after all. It
seems that old party was only pulling my leg."

Ernest good-naturedly struggled to talk with me, but I spared him the
ordeal, and, arrived at Grosvenor's, interestedly studied them to
discover what manner of procedure "trying to ape the swells" might
be--the swells of Noonoon--the doctor who thought I might "peg out"
any minute, and the bank managers and the parsons.

The only difference to be observed between the tea-table at Clay's and
Grosvenor's was that at the latter the equivalents of Uncle Jake and
Andrew did not appear in a coatless condition, were treated to the
luxury of table-napkins, and Mrs Grosvenor, who served, attended to
people according to their rank instead of their position at the table,
and entrusted them with the sugar-basin and milk-jug themselves.
Farther than this there was no distinction, and this was not an
alarming one. Certainly Miss Grosvenor, who had not enjoyed half
Dawn's educational advantages, did not as glaringly flout syntax, and
slang was not so conspicuous in her vocabulary. She and Ernest got on
so well that none but my practised eyes could detect that as the
evening advanced his brown ones occasionally wandered towards the
entrance door, which showed that much as Miss Grosvenor had got him
out of his shell, she had not obliterated Dawn.

That young lady arrived at about a quarter to ten, and we started
homewards, determining to go a long way round, first by way of the
Grosvenor's vehicle road to town, by this gaining the public highway,
along which we would walk to the entrance to grandma's demesne. This
was preferable to a short-cut and rolling under the barbed-wire
fencing in the long grass sopping with dew, which at midnight or
thereabouts would stiffen with the soft frosts of this region that
would flee before the sun next morning.

Dawn's cheeks were scarlet from rowing on the river with "Dora"
Eweword, and she spoke of her jaunt as soon as we got outside,
apparently pregnant with the knowledge innate in the dullest of her
sex, that the most efficacious way of giving impetus to the love of
one lover is to have another.

This, however, is another art which,