us menace Miss Sylla
danced upstairs to bed. Lady Mary, when she found that she must yield
in the matter of the ball, was far too clever a diplomatist not to give
a most gracious assent. She laughed, and vowed that she really thought
a set of Londoners like they all were would have looked forward to
quiet during the Easter holidays; but as they preferred racket, well,
racket be it to their hearts' content. Her duty towards her guests as
hostess was simply to promote the happiness of the greater number.
They would all go to Commonstone, and it only remained now to settle
the matter of transport. The break would hold eight comfortably. If
Mr. and Mrs. Evesham with their daughters, Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris, Mr.
Cottrell, and the Squire would go in that, then she, Blanche, and
either Captain Braybrooke or Mr. Beauchamp could go in the carriage,
and Jim could drive one gentleman over in the dog-cart.

Jim Bloxam knew that he had carried his point sorely against his
mother's inclination; but he had got his cue now, and resolved to
second all her arrangements loyally.

"All right, mother," he said, "that will do very well, you take
Beauchamp in the carriage, and Braybrooke can come in the cart with me."

Although the party generally cared little about the manner of their
going to the ball, there was one exception, and this was Mr. Pansey
Cottrell. That gentleman was extremely fond of his own ease and
comfort, and when a hostess presumed to take him out to a country ball,
he did consider that she was at least bound to find him a front seat in
a most comfortable carriage. "Breaks are all very well," quoth Mr.
Cottrell, "for tough country gentlemen; but I don't expect to be carted
about as if I was a stag on Easter Monday." In short, although Pansey
Cottrell could hardly have been said to be seriously annoyed, yet he
held Lady Mary guilty of a want of consideration for a man of his
status in the fashionable world. To the mischief inherent in his
disposition, and which so often led him to thwart the schemes of those
about him, was now added a mild feeling of resentment, not amounting to
anger, but a feeling that he owed it to himself to mete out some slight
punishment to his hostess. "Yes," he muttered, as he arranged his
white tie in the glass just before dinner, "I think, Lady Mary, the
chances are that I shall contrive to make you a little uncomfortable
this evening. That Sylla Chipchase is as full of devilry as she c