uncheon table on the right of her father.

The sweets and a big cake were on the table, of which the appointments
were a mixture of massive silver plate and inexpensive glass and china.
The servants handed round the first hot dish, placed a cold uncut
sirloin of beef in front of the Squire and vegetable dishes on the
sideboard, and then left the room. After that it was every one help
yourself. This was the invariable arrangement of luncheon on Sundays,
and allowing for the difference of the seasons the viands were always
the same. If anybody staying in the house liked to turn up their noses
at such Sunday fare--one hot _entree_, cold beef, fruit tarts and milk
puddings, a ripe cheese and a good bottle of wine, why they needn't come
again. But very few people did stay in the house, as has been said, and
none of those who did had ever been known to object. There were no
week-end parties, no traffic of mere acquaintances using the house like
an hotel and amusing themselves with no reference to their host or
hostess. The Squire was hospitable in an old-fashioned way, liked to see
his friends around him and gave them of his best. But they must be
friends, and they must conform to the usages of the house.

The talk over the luncheon table began with the perennial topic of the
breeding of partridges and pheasants, and was carried on between the
Squire and Dick, while the women kept submissive silence in the face of
important matters with which they had no concern. Then it took a more
general turn, and drifted into a reminiscence of the conversation that
had taken place over the dinner table the night before. Mrs. Graham and
Jim had dined at Kencote and brought Ronald Mackenzie with them, who had
arrived the evening before on his promised week-end visit.

Humphrey's prophecy had come true. Mackenzie had been the lion of the
London season, and now that London was empty might have taken his choice
of country houses for a week-end visit from whatever county he pleased.
His visit was something of an honour, and was even chronicled in the
newspapers, which had not yet lost interest in his movements. He was a
star of considerable magnitude, liable to wane, of course, but never to
sink quite into obscurity, and just now a planet within everybody's ken.

It was characteristic of the Clinton point of view that the parentage of
this man, whose sole title to fame arose from the things that he had
done, should be discussed. Dick knew all