said was, "Do you ride often in
the Row?" in a voice which though very soft was quite audible. Chatty
retired into herself with the sensation of having said something very
ridiculous when she caught a glance or two of amusement, and heard a
suppressed titter from somebody on the other side of the fashionable
young man to whom she had addressed this very innocent question. She
thought it was at her they were laughing, whereas the fact was that
Chatty was supposed by those who heard her to be a satirist of more
than usual audacity, putting a coxcomb to deserved but ruthless shame.
Naturally she knew nothing of this, and blushed crimson at her evidently
foolish remark, and retired in great confusion into herself, not conscious
even of the stumbling reply. She was almost immediately conscious,
however, of a face which suddenly appeared on the other side of the
table round the corner of a bouquet of waving ferns, lit up with smiles
of pleasure and eager recognition. "Oh, Mr. Cavendish! then it was you,"
she said, unawares; but the tumult of the conversation had arisen again,
and it seemed very doubtful whether her exclamation could have reached
his ear.

When the gentlemen came upstairs, Chatty endeavoured to be looking very
naturally the other way; not to look as if she expected him; but Dick
found his way to her immediately. "I can't think how I missed you
before. I should have tried hard for the pleasure of taking you down,
had I known you were here," he said, with that look of interest which
was the natural expression in his eyes when he addressed a woman. "When
did you come to town, and where are you? I do not know anything that has
been going on, I have heard nothing of you all for so long. There must
be quite a budget of news."

Chatty faltered a little, feeling that Mr. Cavendish had never been
so intimate in the family as these questions seemed to imply. "The
Wilberforces were quite well when we left," she said, with the honesty
of her nature, for to be sure it was the Wilberforces rather than the
Warrenders who were his friends.

"Oh, never mind the Wilberforces," he said, "tell me something about
you."

"There is something to tell about us, for a wonder," said Chatty. "My
sister Minnie is married: but perhaps you would hear of that."

"I think I saw it in the papers, and was very glad----" here he stopped
and did not finish his sentence. A more experienced person than Chatty
would have perceived that he mea