nnounced. The old
gentlemen smiled and murmured their congratulations. She swung to the
tea-table some paces away, and plucked Marmaduke by the sleeve,
interrupting him in the middle of an argument. He rose politely.

"Come and play."

"My dear," he said, "I'm such a duffer at games."

"Never mind; you'll learn in time."

He drew out a grey silk handkerchief as if ready to perspire at the
first thought of it. "Tennis makes one so dreadfully hot," said he.

Peggy tapped the point of her foot irritably, but she laughed as she
turned to Lady Bruce.

"What's the good of being engaged to a man if he can't play tennis
with you?"

"There are other things in life besides tennis, my dear," replied Lady
Bruce.

The girl flushed, but being aware that a pert answer turneth away
pleasant invitations, said nothing. She nodded and went off to her
game, and informing Mr. Petherbridge that Lady Bruce was a
platitudinous old tabby, flirted with him up to the nice limits of his
parsonical dignity. But Marmaduke did not mind.

"Games are childish and somewhat barbaric. Don't you think so, Lady
Bruce?"

"Most young people seem fond of them," replied the lady. "Exercise
keeps them in health."

"It all depends," he argued. "Often they get exceedingly hot, then
they sit about and catch their death of cold."

"That's very true," said Lady Bruce. "It's what I'm always telling Sir
Archibald about golf. Only last week he caught a severe chill in that
very way. I had to rub his chest with camphorated oil."

"Just as my poor dear mother used to do to me," said Marmaduke.

There followed a conversation on ailments and their treatment, in
which Mrs. Conover joined. Marmaduke was quite happy. He knew that the
two elderly ladies admired the soundness of his views and talked to
him as to one of themselves.

"I'm sure, my dear Marmaduke, you're very wise to take care of
yourself," said Lady Bruce, "especially now, when you have the
responsibilities of married life before you."

Marmaduke curled himself up comfortably in his chair. If he had been a
cat, he would have purred. The old butler, grown as grey in the
service of the Deanery as the cathedral itself--he had been page and
footman to Dr. Conover's predecessor--removed the tea-things and
brought out a tray of glasses and lemonade with ice clinking
refreshingly against the sides of the jug. When the game was over, the
players came and drank and sat about the lawn. The shadow of th