advances so ungraciously. Compunction rendered him now doubly
courteous; he was even once or twice almost gay.

The day was as fine as a clear sky, a warm sun, and a western breeze
could render it. Tempted by so much enjoyment, their ride was long. It
was late, much later than they expected, when they returned home by the
green lanes of pretty Willesden, and the Park was quite empty when they
emerged from the Edgware-road into Oxford-street.

'Now the best thing we can all do is to dine in St. James'-square,' said
Lord Montfort. 'It is ten minutes past eight. We shall just be in time,
and then we can send messages to Grosvenor-square and Brook-street. What
say you, Armine? You will come, of course?'

'Thank you, if you would excuse me.'

'No, no; why excuse you?' said Lord Montfort: 'I think it shabby to
desert us now, after all our adventures.'

'Really you are very kind, but I never dine out.'

'Dine out! What a phrase! You will not meet a human being; perhaps not
even my father. If you will not come, it will spoil everything.'

'I cannot dine in a frock,' said Ferdinand.

'I shall,' said Lord Montfort, 'and these ladies must dine in their
habits, I suspect.'

'Oh! certainly, certainly,' said the ladies.

'Do come, Ferdinand,' said Katherine.

'I ask you as a favour,' said Henrietta, turning to him and speaking in
a low voice.

'Well,' said Ferdinand, with a sigh.

'That is well,' said Montfort; 'now let us trot through the Park, and
the groom can call in Grosvenor-square and Brook-street, and gallop
after us. This is amusing, is it not?'

CHAPTER IX.

_Which Is on the Whole Almost as Perplexing as the Preceding
One_.

WHEN Ferdinand found himself dining in St. James'-square, in the very
same room where he had passed so many gay hours during that boyish month
of glee which preceded his first joining his regiment, and then looked
opposite him and saw Henrietta Temple, it seemed to him that, by some
magical process or other, his life was acting over again, and the order
of the scenes and characters had, by some strange mismanagement, got
confused. Yet he yielded himself up to the excitement which had so
unexpectedly influenced him; he was inflamed by a species of wild
delight which he could not understand, nor stop to analyse; and when the
duchess retired with the young ladies to their secret conclave in the
drawing-room, she said, 'I like Captain Armine very much; he is so full
of s