gh
I need not fear, "I had a note from yesterday, saying he had returned
from Scotland, and asking us to go over soon and pay our promised
visit to dine and sleep."

"There! I'll bet he was fishing for an invitation to this shoot,"
said Augustus, triumphantly. And, not content with the mustard he had
already plastered the kidney with, he shook pepper over it, heaping it
up upon his knife first and agitating that implement with his fork to
make the pepper fall evenly. I do not know why these details of the
way he eats should irritate me so.

"Now, mind you catch the early post," he continued, "and tell him who
the party are."

At fifteen minutes to eleven I found myself still staring irresolutely
at the sheet of note-paper lying before me on the writing-table in my
boudoir. It had the date written, and "Dear Sir Antony." The rest was
a blank.

The little, brand-new Dresden clock on the mantel-piece chimed the
three-quarters. The post leaves at eleven. I took up the pen and
dashed at it.

"Eight guns are going to shoot partridges here on the 15th of October,
and Augustus will be very pleased if you will make the ninth,"
I wrote. Could anything be more _bete_? "Please wire reply, and
believe me, yours sincerely--" I hesitated again. Must I sign myself
"Ambrosine de Calincourt Gurrage"? The strangest reluctance came over
me.

It has always been a disagreeable moment when I have had to write
"Gurrage," but never so disagreeable as now.

"A. de C.G.," I began. No, initials would not do--"urrage," I added,
and the distance between the "G" and the "u" showed, I am afraid, that
there was something unnatural about my signature.

"No one would accept such a stupid invitation as that," I said to
myself, hopefully, as I folded the sheet and put it in the envelope.
But by ten o'clock next day a telegram was handed to me:

Very pleased to come on 15th. Many thanks.--ANTONY THORNHIRST.

So he will see the stuffed bears, and the negro figures, and the
Tottenham Court Road Louis XV. drawing-rooms, after all, whether I
wish it or no!

_Whether I wish it or no!_

Augustus was delighted--not so much at the acceptance of this guest,
but his own wonderful prehension.

"There! I told you he'd jump at it," he said.

* * * * *

For several days after this a good deal of my time was taken up by
my mother-in-law's advice and directions as to how I should rule the
house during her absence at