d some stupid person to take into dinner, perhaps?"

"No; I went in with Violet."

"And you and she are such old friends. You ought to get on very well
together."

Rorie reddened furiously. Happily he was standing with his back to the
light in one of the orchid-houses, enjoying the drowsy warmth of the
atmosphere, and Mabel was engrossed with the contemplation of a fine
zygopetalum, which was just making up its mind to bloom.

"Oh, yes, that was well enough; but the evening was disgustingly slow.
There was too much music."

"Classical?"

"Lord knows. It was mostly French and German. I consider it an insult
to people to ask them to your house, and then stick them down in their
chairs, and say h--sh--h! every time they open their months. If people
want to give amateur concerts, let them say so when they send out their
invitations, and then one would know what one has to expect."

"I am afraid the music must have been very bad to make you so cross,"
said Lady Mabel, rather pleased that the evening at the Abbey House
should have been a failure. "Who were the performers?"

"Violet, and an Irish friend of Captain Winstanley's--a man with a rosy
complexion and black whiskers--Lord Mallow."

"Lord Mallow! I think I danced with him once or twice last season. He
is rather distinguished as a politician, I believe, among the young
Ireland party. Dreadfully radical."

"He looks it," answered Rorie. "He has a loud voice and a loud laugh,
and they seem to be making a great deal of him at the Abbey House."

"'Tommy loves a lord,'" says Lady Mabel brightly. Rorie hadn't the
faintest idea whence the quotation came. "I daresay the Winstanleys are
rather glad to have Lord Mallow staying with them."

"The Squire would have kicked him out of doors," muttered Rorie
savagely.

"But why? Is he so very objectionable? He waltzes beautifully, if I
remember right; and I thought him rather a well-meaning young man."

"Oh, there's nothing serious against him that I know of; only I don't
think Squire Tempest would have liked a singing man any more than he
would have liked a singing mouse."

"I didn't know Miss Tempest sang," said Lady Mabel. "I thought she
could do nothing but ride."

"Oh, she has a very pretty voice, but one may have too much of a good
thing, you know. One doesn't go out to dinner to hear people sing
duets."

"I'm afraid they must have given you a very bad dinner, or you would
hardly be so cross. I know that is