?"

"I hope not, my dear."

"What is he to do, with nobody else here to amuse him?"

"The Crutchleys are coming on the 27th."

Now Mr. and Mrs. Crutchley were, as Emily thought, very ordinary
people, and quite unlikely to afford amusement to Lord Alfred. Mr.
Crutchley was an old gentleman of county standing, and with property
in the county, living in a large dull red house in Penrith, of
whom Sir Harry thought a good deal, because he was a gentleman who
happened to have had great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. But
he was quite as old as Sir Harry, and Mrs. Crutchley was a great deal
older than Lady Elizabeth.

"What will Lord Alfred have to say to Mrs. Crutchley, mamma?"

"What do people in society always have to say to each other? And the
Lathebys are coming here to dine to-morrow, and will come again, I
don't doubt, on the 27th."

Mr. Latheby was the young Vicar of Humblethwaite, and Mrs. Latheby
was a very pretty young bride whom he had just married.

"And then Lord Alfred shoots," continued Lady Elizabeth.

"Cousin George said that the shooting wasn't worth going after," said
Emily, smiling. "Mamma, I fear it will be a failure." This made Lady
Elizabeth unhappy, as she thought that more was meant than was really
said. But she did not confide her fears to her husband.

CHAPTER III.

LORD ALFRED'S COURTSHIP.

The Hall, as the great house at Humblethwaite was called, consisted
in truth of various edifices added one to another at various periods;
but the result was this, that no more picturesque mansion could be
found in any part of England than the Hall at Humblethwaite. The
oldest portion of it was said to be of the time of Henry VII.; but it
may perhaps be doubted whether the set of rooms with lattice windows
looking out on to the bowling-green, each window from beneath its
own gable, was so old as the date assigned to it. It is strange how
little authority can usually be found in family records to verify
such statements. It was known that Humblethwaite and the surrounding
manors had been given to, or in some fashion purchased by, a certain
Harry Hotspur, who also in his day had been a knight, when Church
lands were changing hands under Henry VIII. And there was authority
to prove that that Sir Harry had done something towards making a
home for himself on the spot; but whether those very gables were a
portion of the building which the monks of St. Humble had raised for
themselves in the