you think I shall make him happy?"

"Yes, I do, certainly."

"Happier than he would be with any one else that he might meet? I
dare not think that. I think I could give him up to-morrow, if I
could see any one that would suit him better." What would Lily have
said had she been made acquainted with all the fascinations of Lady
Alexandrina de Courcy?

The countess was very civil to him, saying nothing about his
engagement, but still talking to him a good deal about his sojourn at
Allington. Crosbie was a pleasant man for ladies in a large house.
Though a sportsman, he was not so keen a sportsman as to be always
out with the gamekeepers. Though a politician, he did not sacrifice
his mornings to the perusal of blue-books or the preparation of party
tactics. Though a reading man, he did not devote himself to study.
Though a horseman, he was not often to be found in the stables. He
could supply conversation when it was wanted, and could take himself
out of the way when his presence among the women was not needed.
Between breakfast and lunch on the day following his arrival he
talked a good deal to the countess, and made himself very agreeable.
She continued to ridicule him gently for his prolonged stay among so
primitive and rural a tribe of people as the Dales, and he bore her
little sarcasm with the utmost good-humour.

"Six weeks at Allington without a move! Why, Mr Crosbie, you must
have felt yourself to be growing there."

"So I did--like an ancient tree. Indeed, I was so rooted that I could
hardly get away."

"Was the house full of people all the time?"

"There was nobody there but Bernard Dale, Lady Julia's nephew."

"Quite a case of Damon and Pythias. Fancy your going down to
the shades of Allington to enjoy the uninterrupted pleasures of
friendship for six weeks."

"Friendship and the partridges."

"There was nothing else, then?"

"Indeed there was. There was a widow with two very nice daughters,
living, not exactly in the same house, but on the same grounds."

"Oh, indeed. That makes such a difference; doesn't it? You are not a
man to bear much privation on the score of partridges, nor a great
deal, I imagine, for friendship. But when you talk of pretty girls--"

"It makes a difference, doesn't it?"

"A very great difference. I think I have heard of that Mrs Dale
before. And so her girls are nice?"

"Very nice indeed."

"Play croquet, I suppose, and eat syllabub on the lawn? But, really,
didn't