ight, just as she always did, and after a while slept,--much better
than Dick.

He came next day, however, for a final visit, and the day after to see
them away, without any apparent breach in the confidence and friendship
with which they regarded each other. There might be, perhaps, a faint
almost imperceptible difference in Chatty, a little dignity like that
which her mother had discovered in her, something that was not altogether
the simple girl, younger than her years, whom Mrs. Warrender had brought
to town. On the very last morning of all, Dick had also a look which was
not very easy to be interpreted. While they were on their way to the
station he began suddenly to talk of Underwood and the Wilberforces, as
if he had forgotten them all this time, and now suddenly remembered that
there were such people in the world. "Did I ever tell you," he said,
"that one of the houses in the parish belongs to an uncle of mine, who
bought it merely as an investment, and let it?"

"We were talking of that," said Mrs. Warrender. "Mr. Wilberforce hoped
you had persuaded your uncle to leave the drainage alone in order to
make a nuisance and drive undesirable tenants away."

He laughed in a hurried, breathless way, then said quickly, "Is it true
that the people who were there are gone?"

"Quite true. They seem to have melted away without any one knowing, in a
single night They were not desirable people."

"So I heard: and gone without leaving any sign?"

"Have they not paid their rent?" said Mrs. Warrender.

"Oh, I don't mean to say that. I know nothing about that. My uncle----"
and here he stopped, with an embarrassment which, though Mrs. Warrender
was an unsuspicious woman, attracted her notice. "I mean," said Cavendish,
perceiving this, and putting force upon himself, "he will of course be
glad to get rid of people who apparently could do his property no good."

And after this his spirits seemed to rise a little. He told them that
he had some friends near Highcombe, who sometimes in the autumn offered
him a few days' shooting. If he got such an invitation this autumn
might he come? "It is quite a handy distance from London, just the
Saturday-to-Monday distance," he added, looking at Mrs. Warrender with
an expression which meant a great deal, which had in it a question, a
supplication. And she was so imprudent a woman! and no shadow of Minnie
at hand to restrain her. It was on her very lips to give the invitation
he asked.