idiculous! You will drive the people
from the church, sir."

Then Mr. Elliot arrived. Mrs. Duff-Whalley greeted him impressively, and
dinner was announced.

Lewis Elliot was a man of forty-five, tall and thin and inclined to
stoop. He had shortsighted blue eyes and a shy, kind smile. He was not a
sociable man, and resented being dragged from his books to attend a
dinner-party. Like most people he was quite incapable of saying No to
Mrs. Duff-Whalley when that lady desired an answer in the affirmative,
but he had condemned himself roundly to himself as a fool as he drove
down the glen from Laverlaw.

Mrs. Duff-Whalley always gave a long and pretentious meal, and expected
everyone to pay for their invitation by being excessively bright and
chatty. It was not in the power of the present guests to be either the
one thing or the other. Mrs. Jowett was pensive and sweet, and inclined
to be silent; her husband gave loud barks of disagreement at intervals;
Mr. Jackson enjoyed his dinner and answered when spoken to, while Lewis
Elliot was rendered almost speechless by the flood of talk his hostess
poured over him.

"I'm very sorry, Mr. Elliot," she remarked in a pause, "that the people
I wanted to meet you couldn't come. I asked Sir John and Lady Tweedie,
but they were engaged--so unfortunate, for they are such an acquisition.
Then I asked the Olivers, and they couldn't come. You would really
wonder where the engagements come from in this quiet neighbourhood." She
gave a little unbelieving laugh. "I had evidently chosen an unfortunate
evening for the County."

It was trying for everyone: for Mr. Elliot, who was left with the
impression that people were apt to be engaged when asked to meet him;
for the Jowetts, who now knew that they had received a "fiddler's
bidding," and for Mr. Jackson, who felt that he was only there because
nobody else could be got.

There was a blank silence, which Lewis Elliot broke by laughing
cheerfully. "That absurd rhyme came into my head," he explained. "You
know:

"'Miss Smarty gave a party,
No one came.
Her brother gave another,
Just the same.'"

Then, feeling suddenly that he had not improved matters, he fell silent.

"Oh," said Mrs. Duff-Whalley, rearing her head like an affronted hen,
"the difficulty, I assure you, is not to find guests but to decide which
to select."

"Quite so, quite so, naturally," murmured Mr. Jackson soothingly; he
had laughed at the rhyme and f