alf good-humoured, then vainly put his hand on the large claret jug,
which Agatha had to lift and guide to her glass--"My friends, I am
delighted to see you all. And on this happy occasion let me have the
honour of giving the first toast. The Reverend Frederick Harper and
Mistress Mary Harper."

Mary and Eulalie drew back. "That is grandfather and grandmother--dead
fifty years ago. What does papa mean?"

But the whisper did not reach the old man, who drank the toast with
all solemnity. Mr. Grimes did the same, repeating it loudly, with the
addition of "long life, health, and happiness." The daughters each cast
down strange, shocked looks upon her untouched glass. No one spoke.

"Do you make a long stay in Dorsetshire?" observed the Squire,
addressing himself courteously to his guest.

"That depends," Grimes answered, with a meaning twinkle of the eye--an
eye already growing moistened with too good wine.

"Did you not say," Mary Harper continued, fancying her father looked at
her to sustain the conversation--"did you not say you were intending to
visit Cornwall?"

"No ma'am. Would rather be excused. As Mr. Harper knows, the place would
be too hot to hold _me_ after certain circumstances."

"Sir!" The old man tried hard to gather himself up into stern dignity,
and collect the ideas that where fast floating from him. "Sir," he
repeated, first haughtily, and then with a violence so rare to
his rigidly gentlemanly demeanour that his daughters looked
alarmed--"Sir--at my table--before my family--I beg--I"--Here he
suddenly recovered himself, changed his tone, and bowed--"I--beg your
pardon."

"Oh, no offence, Squire; none meant, none taken. I came with the best
of all intentions towards you and yours. And if things have turned out
badly"--

"Did you not say you were acquainted with Cornwall?" abruptly asked
Agatha, to prevent his again irritating her father-in-law, who had
leaned back, sleepily. He would not close his eyes, but they looked
misty and heavy, and his fingers played lazily with one another on the
arm of his chair; Agatha laid her own upon them--she could not help
it. She lost her fear of the repellent Mr. Harper in the old man, so
helpless and feeble. She wished she had come oftener to Kingcombe Holm,
and been more attentive and daughter-like to Nathanael's father.

"As to Cornwall," said Grimes, in a confidential whisper, "between you
and me, Mrs. Harper, mum's the word."

Agatha drew herself up ha