of no little asperity towards that "flirting Suffolk girl,"
Lady Mary drove home to Todborough.

CHAPTER IV.

THE ROCKCLIFFE GAMES.

When Lady Mary came to think over the events of the night she found
considerable cause for dissatisfaction, but it was as nothing to the
further discomfiture awaiting her at the breakfast-table the next
morning. Her scheme of seclusion--of a quiet party which, contenting
themselves with their own society, should seek for no other amusement
than was comprised within the resources of the Grange--had been already
rudely broken in upon. And now she was confronted by an arrangement
which her son had entered into without consulting her. On entering the
breakfast-room she found Jim explaining the programme of the day,--how
they were all to lunch at the mess of the --th regiment and witness the
athletic sports of Rockcliffe camp.

"Cold collation all over the camp, five o'clock tea, fresh air, fun and
flirtation, society and sunshine; if all that does not realize 'a dream
of fair women,' well, then, I know nothing about them," were the first
words that greeted Lady Mary's ear. Lady Mary Bloxam was no weak
vacillating woman--a woman, on the contrary, wont to carry her point,
and who contrived to have her own way, perhaps, rather more than most
people; but she saw at once that it would be hopeless to stem the tide
upon this occasion. With all her guests on a lovely spring day anxious
to attend an entertainment not three miles off, what was there to be
said? No possible pretext could be devised for preventing them. Why,
oh, why had she persuaded that graceless dragoon to leave Aldershot and
share the peace and tranquillity of home? She might have remembered
how foreign peace and tranquillity were to Jim's mercurial disposition;
and then, Lady Mary reflected ruefully, that flirting Suffolk girl was
certain to be present at the sports. In her dismay, she for a second
thought of taking counsel with Pansey Cottrell as to what it were best
to do under the circumstances; but after such festivities as that of
the previous night Mr. Cottrell was always invisible to every one save
his valet till past midday.

The hierarchy of Olympus had apparently taken the Rockcliffe games
under their special protection. A more glorious April day never dawned
than the Tuesday appointed for its athletic sports. Here and there a
few fleecy clouds flecked the sky, as here and there a snowy patch of
canv