roof.

"No? Beg your pardon! I should have liked to show you my Herefords
to-morrow morning. I think you'd admire 'em; they're the best lot I've
had, and I ought to do well with them at the show. But perhaps you don't
take an interest in cattle-breeding?"

"Oh, yes, I do," said Drake pleasantly, and with his rather rare
smile--he was brimming over with happiness and would have patted a
rhinoceros that night, and Sir William was anything but a rhinoceros.
"Every man ought to take an interest in cattle-breeding and
horse-breeding. I did a little in the latter way myself." He pulled up
short. "I shall be very glad to come over to-morrow morning, if you'll
allow me."

"Do, do!" said Sir William genially, and evidently much gratified. "But,
look here, you'll have to come over early, because I've got to go and
sit on the bench, and shall have to leave here soon after ten. Why not
come over to breakfast--say, nine o'clock?"

"Thanks!" said Drake; "I shall be very glad to."

At this moment Lady Maltby came up to them with a rather anxious
expression on her pleasant face.

"I can't think what has come to the Chesney party, William," she said.
"I didn't expect them very early, but it's getting rather late now. Do
you think they've had an accident?"

"Not a bit of it!" returned Sir William cheerily. "They've had a jolly
good dinner, and don't feel like moving. Don't blame them, either.
Suppose we go and have a cigar, Mr. Blake?"

Drake glanced toward Nell, saw that she was surrounded, exchanged a
smile with her, then went off with Sir William to the smoking room. They
were in the middle of their cigars, and talking cattle and horses, when
Drake heard a carriage drive up.

"That's the Chesney people, I dare say," said Sir William, and
continued to dilate on a new rule which he was anxious that the
Agricultural Society should adopt, and Drake and he discussed it
exhaustively.

Nell had just finished a dance when she saw Lady Maltby hurry across the
room to receive four persons, two ladies and two men, who had just
arrived. It was the belated Chesney party. Their entrance attracted a
good deal of attention, and Nell herself was startled into interest and
curiosity by the appearance of one of the new arrivals. She thought that
she had never imagined--she had certainly never seen--so beautiful a
woman, or one so magnificently dressed.

A professional beauty in all her war paint is somewhat of a rara avis in
a quiet coun