the conservatory into the grounds beyond.

"I really wish, Plantagenet," says Lady Stafford, turning upon the
bewildered Potts with most unaccountable severity, "you could manage to
employ your time in some useful way. The dreadful manner in which you
spend your days, wandering round the house without aim or reason,
causes me absolute regret. _Do_ give yourself the habit of reading
or--or doing something to improve your mind, whenever you have a spare
moment."

So saying, she sweeps past him out of the room, without even making an
inquiry about that priceless idea, leaving poor Potts rooted to the
ground, striving wildly, but vainly, to convict himself of some
unpardonable offense.

CHAPTER XXII.

"Love, thou art bitter."

--Blaine.

Mr. Amherst, having in a weak moment given his consent to the ball,
repays himself by being as unamiable afterward as he can well manage.

"You can have your music and the supper from London, if you wish it,"
he says to Marcia, one day, when he has inveighed against the whole
proceeding in language that borders on the abusive; "but if you think I
am going to have an army of decorators down here, turning the house
into a fancy bazar, and making one feel a stranger in one's own rooms,
you are very much mistaken."

"I think you are right, dear," Marcia answers, with her customary
meekness: "people of that kind are always more trouble than anything
else. And no doubt we shall be able to do all that is necessary quite
as well ourselves."

"As to that you can, of course, please yourself. Though why you cannot
dance without filling the rooms with earwigs and dying flowers I can't
conceive."

Mr. Amherst's word being like the law of the Medes and Persians, that
altereth not, no one disputes it. They couple a few opprobrious
epithets with his name just at first, but finally, putting on an air of
resolution, declare themselves determined and ready to outdo any
decorators in the kingdom.

"We shall wake up in the morning after the ball to find ourselves
famous," says Lady Stafford. "The county will ring with our praises.
But we must have help: we cannot depend upon broken reeds." With a
reproachful glance at Sir Penthony, who is looking the picture of
laziness. "Talbot Lowry, of course, will assist us; _he_ goes
without saying."

"I hope he will come without saying," puts in Sir Penthony; "it would
be much more to the purpose. Any smart young tradesmen amon