tion now he's a private secretary,"
said Lady Julia.

"Bless us all! yes; I forgot that. Come, Mr Private Secretary, don't
stand on the grandeur of your neck-tie to-day, as there's nobody here
but ourselves. You shall have an opportunity to-morrow."

Then Johnny was handed over to the groom of the chambers, and exactly
in twenty minutes he reappeared in the drawing-room.

As soon as Lady Julia had left them after dinner, the earl began to
explain his plan for the coming campaign. "I'll tell you now what I
have arranged," said he. "The squire is to be here to-morrow with his
eldest niece,--your Miss Lily's sister, you know."

"What, Bell?"

"Yes, with Bell, if her name is Bell. She's a very pretty girl, too.
I don't know whether she's not the prettiest of the two, after all."

"That's a matter of opinion."

"Just so, Johnny; and do you stick to your own. They're coming here
for three or four days. Lady Julia did ask Mrs Dale and Lily. I
wonder whether you'll let me call her Lily?"

"Oh, dear! I wish I might have the power of letting you."

"That's just the battle that you've got to fight. But the mother
and the younger sister wouldn't come. Lady Julia says it's all
right;--that, as a matter of course, she wouldn't come when she heard
you were to be here. I don't quite understand it. In my days the
young girls were ready enough to go where they knew they'd meet their
lovers, and I never thought any the worse of them for it."

"It wasn't because of that," said Eames.

"That's what Lady Julia says, and I always find her to be right in
things of that sort. And she says you'll have a better chance in
going over there than you would here, if she were in the same house
with you. If I was going to make love to a girl, of course I'd sooner
have her close to me,--staying in the same house. I should think it
the best fun in the world. And we might have had a dance, and all
that kind of thing. But I couldn't make her come, you know."

"Oh, no; of course not."

"And Lady Julia thinks that it's best as it is. You must go over, you
know, and get the mother on your side, if you can. I take it, the
truth is this;--you mustn't be angry with me, you know, for saying
it."

"You may be sure of that."

"I suppose she was fond of that fellow, Crosbie. She can't be very
fond of him now, I should think, after the way he has treated her;
but she'll find a difficulty in making her confession that she really
likes you better tha