een anxious to go over,
alleging various excuses,--the absence of dress clothes, the calls of
Stone and Toddy, his bashfulness, and the absurdity of paying fifteen
shillings for a gig. But he went at last, constrained by his friend,
and a very dull evening he passed. Lizzie was quite unlike her usual
self,--was silent, grave, and solemnly courteous; Miss Macnulty
had not a word to say for herself; and even Frank was dull. Arthur
Herriot had not tried to exert himself, and the dinner had been a
failure.

"You don't think much of my cousin, I daresay," said Frank, as they
were driving back.

"She is a very pretty woman."

"And I should say that she does not think much of you."

"Probably not."

"Why on earth wouldn't you speak to her? I went on making speeches to
Miss Macnulty on purpose to give you a chance. Lizzie generally talks
about as well as any young woman I know; but you had not a word to
say to her, nor she to you."

"Because you devoted yourself to Miss Mac--whatever her name is."

"That's nonsense," said Frank; "Lizzie and I are more like brother
and sister than anything else. She has no one else belonging to her,
and she has to come to me for advice, and all that sort of thing. I
wanted you to like her."

"I never like people, and people never like me. There is an old
saying that you should know a man seven years before you poke his
fire. I want to know persons seven years before I can ask them how
they do. To take me out to dine in this way was of all things the
most hopeless."

"But you do dine out,--in London."

"That's different. There's a certain routine of conversation going,
and one falls into it. At such affairs as that this evening one
has to be intimate, or it is a bore. I don't mean to say anything
against Lady Eustace. Her beauty is undeniable, and I don't doubt her
cleverness."

"She is sometimes too clever," said Frank.

"I hope she is not becoming too clever for you. You've got to
remember that you're due elsewhere;--eh, old fellow?" This was the
first word that Herriot had said on the subject, and to that word
Frank Greystock made no answer. But it had its effect, as also did
the gloomy looks of Miss Macnulty, and the not unobserved presence of
Mr. Andy Gowran on various occasions.

Between them they shot more grouse,--so the keeper swore,--than
had ever been shot on these mountains before. Herriot absolutely
killed one or two himself, to his own great delight, and Frank, wh