shutting
ourselves up away from them in our own dining-room."

"Certainly not--certainly not," said Fitzpiers; and he entered the room
with the heroic smile of a martyr.

As soon as they sat down to table Melbury came in, and seemed to see at
once that Fitzpiers would much rather have received no such
demonstrative reception. He thereupon privately chid his wife for her
forwardness in the matter. Mrs. Melbury declared that it was as much
Grace's doing as hers, after which there was no more to be said by that
young woman's tender father. By this time Fitzpiers was making the
best of his position among the wide-elbowed and genial company who sat
eating and drinking and laughing and joking around him; and getting
warmed himself by the good cheer, was obliged to admit that, after all,
the supper was not the least enjoyable he had ever known.

At times, however, the words about his having spoiled his
opportunities, repeated to him as those of Mrs. Charmond, haunted him
like a handwriting on the wall. Then his manner would become suddenly
abstracted. At one moment he would mentally put an indignant query why
Mrs. Charmond or any other woman should make it her business to have
opinions about his opportunities; at another he thought that he could
hardly be angry with her for taking an interest in the doctor of her
own parish. Then he would drink a glass of grog and so get rid of the
misgiving. These hitches and quaffings were soon perceived by Grace as
well as by her father; and hence both of them were much relieved when
the first of the guests to discover that the hour was growing late rose
and declared that he must think of moving homeward. At the words
Melbury rose as alertly as if lifted by a spring, and in ten minutes
they were gone.

"Now, Grace," said her husband as soon as he found himself alone with
her in their private apartments, "we've had a very pleasant evening,
and everybody has been very kind. But we must come to an understanding
about our way of living here. If we continue in these rooms there must
be no mixing in with your people below. I can't stand it, and that's
the truth."

She had been sadly surprised at the suddenness of his distaste for
those old-fashioned woodland forms of life which in his courtship he
had professed to regard with so much interest. But she assented in a
moment.

"We must be simply your father's tenants," he continued, "and our
goings and comings must be as independe