soon after that. Miss Tresilyan has never shown much since. But
you've no idea of the sensation she made during her season and a half.
They called her The Refuser, she had such a fabulous number of offers,
and wouldn't look at any of them. By-the-by, there's rather a good story
about that. You know Margate? He's going to the bad very fast now, but
he was the crack puppy of that year's entry; good-looking, long
minority, careful guardians, leases falling in, mother one of the best
Christians in England, and all that sort of thing. Well, Tom Cary took
him in hand, and brought him out in great form before long. They were
talking over their preparations for the moors, for they were going to
start the next day. 'I believe that's all,' Margate asked, 'or have we
forgotten any thing?' 'Wait a minute,' said Tom, and reflected
(provident man, Tom; fond of his comforts, and proud of it)--'Ah! I
thought there was something. You haven't proposed to The Tresilyan.'
They say Margate's face was a study. He never disputed the orders of his
private trainer, so he only said, piteously, 'But I don't want to marry
any one,' and looked as if he was going to cry. 'You _are_ "ower
young,"' Cary said, encouragingly, 'and it's about the last thing I
should press upon you. It wouldn't suit my book at all. But I don't see
how that affects the question. I can lay ten ponies to one she won't
have you. It's the thing to do, depend upon it. All the other good men
have had a turn, and you have no right to be singular; it's bad taste.
Rank has its duties, my lord. _Noblesse oblige_, and so forth. You
understand?' Margate _didn't_ in the least, but he went and proposed
quite properly, and was rejected rather more decidedly than his fellows.
Then he went down into Perthshire, and missed his grouse, and lost his
salmon, with a comfortable consciousness of having discharged his
obligations to society."

Royston Keene actually groaned, "Why didn't she come sooner?" he said.
"What a luxury, in this God-forgotten place, to talk to a clever
handsome woman, who tramples on strawberry-leaves!"

"Perhaps she would have come if she had known how much we wanted her,"
replied Harry. "They say she is a model of charity, and several other
virtues too. She is coming here for the health of some companion, or
governess, who lives with her. Yet she flirts outrageously at times, in
her own imperial way. Better late than never. I'm certain you'll like
her, and perhaps she'