htly, drummed on the table with his fingers, and finally rose
without reply, and betook himself to the _Times_. Miss Drake meanwhile
had been carried off to play billiards at the farther end of the hall by
the young men of the party. It might have been noticed that, before she
went, she had spent a few minutes of close though masked observation of
her cousin Oliver's new friend. Also, that she tried to carry Oliver
Marsham with her, but unsuccessfully. He had returned to Diana's
neighborhood, and stood leaning over a chair beside her, listening to
her conversation with Mr. Ferrier.

His sister, Mrs. Fotheringham, was not content to listen. Diana's
impressions of the country-side, which presently caught her ear,
evidently roused her pugnacity. She threw herself on all the girl's
rose-colored appreciations with a scorn hardly disguised. All the
"locals," according to her, were stupid or snobbish--bores, in fact, of
the first water. And to Diana's discomfort and amazement, Oliver Marsham
joined in. He showed himself possessed of a sharper and more caustic
tongue than Diana had yet suspected. His sister's sallies only amused
him, and sometimes he improved on them, with epithets or comments,
shrewder than hers indeed, but quite as biting.

"His neighbors and constituents!" thought Diana, in a young
astonishment. "The people who send him to Parliament!"

Mr. Ferrier seemed to become aware of her surprise and disapproval, for
he once or twice threw in a satirical word or two, at the expense, not
of the criticised, but of the critics. The well-known Leader of the
Opposition was a stout man of middle height, with a round head and face,
at first sight wholly undistinguished, an ample figure, and smooth,
straight hair. But there was so much honesty and acuteness in the eyes,
so much humor in the mouth, and so much kindness in the general aspect,
that Diana felt herself at once attracted; and when the master of the
house was summoned by his head gamekeeper to give directions for the
shooting-party of the following day, and Mrs. Fotheringham had gone off
to attend what seemed to be a vast correspondence, the politician and
the young girl fell into a conversation which soon became agreeable and
even absorbing to both. Mrs. Colwood, sitting on the other side of the
hall, timidly discussing fancy work with the Miss Varleys, Lady Lucy's
young nieces, saw that Diana was making a conquest; and it seemed to
her, moreover, that Mr. Ferrie