it at Stoke Moreton on the
strength of an old promise to Charles, a promise so old that he had
forgotten it, until reminded, that next time they were passing they
would take his house on their way. They had offered their visit exactly
at the same time for which he had just invited the Alwynns and Ruth.
Charles felt that they were not quite the people whom he would have
arranged to meet each other, but, as Fate had so decreed it, he
acquiesced calmly enough.

But when Lady Mary also wrote tenderly from Scarborough, to ask if she
could be of any use helping to entertain his guests, he felt it
imperative to draw the line, and wrote a grateful effusion to his aunt,
saying that he could not think of asking her to leave a place where he
felt sure she was deriving spiritual and temporal benefit, in order to
assist at so unprofitable a festivity as a shooting-party. He mentioned
casually that Lady Grace Lawrence, Miss Deyncourt, and Miss Wyndham were
to be of the party, which details he imagined might have an interest for
her amid her graver reflections.

The subject of Ruth's coming certainly had a prominent place in his own
graver reflections. For the last fortnight, as he went from house to
house, he had been wondering how he could meet her again, and, when Mr.
Alwynn's letter concerning the charters was forwarded to him, a sudden
inspiration made him then and there send the invitation which had
arrived at Slumberleigh Rectory a few days before. He groaned in spirit
as he wrote it, at the thought of Mrs. Alwynn disporting herself,
dressed in the brightest colors, among his other guests; and it was with
a feeling of thankfulness that he found Ruth and Mr. Alwynn were coming
without her.

He had felt very little interest so far in the party, which, with the
exception of the Hope-Actons, had been long arranged, but now he found
himself looking forward to it with actual impatience, and he returned
home a day before the time, instead of an hour or two before his guests
were expected, as was his wont.

The Wyndhams and Hope-Actons, with Lady Grace in tow, were the first to
appear upon the scene. Mr. Alwynn and Ruth arrived a few hours later,
amid a dropping fire of young men and gun-cases, who kept on turning up
at intervals during the afternoon, and, according to the mysterious
nocturnal habits of their kind, till late into the night.

If ever a man appears to advantage it is on his native hearth, and as
Charles stood on hi