e to undo a rug and make myself
comfortable."

"No?" said Mr Merrilies; and once again his voice sounded so flat and
uninterested that she wished she had not been so explicit in setting
forth her feelings. She allowed herself to be helped to a second cup of
tea, then relapsed into silence, waiting patiently for a fresh lead.
The other men were discussing the day's sport, and presently her
companion must needs report on "the bag" in his turn.

"We have been over the Tansy Woods to-day, seven of us, and the bag was
two hundred and fifteen pheasants, a brace of partridges, thirty hares,
and ninety-five rabbits. Pretty fair, isn't it?"

"I don't know," said Hope simply. "I know nothing about shooting.
Neither my father nor brother was a sportsman, so I cannot judge what is
bad or good. It seems a tremendous number."

She looked so pretty and so winsome as she glanced at him with her
childlike eyes that his face relaxed from its set lines, and he smiled
in involuntary friendliness.

"A few years ago it would have been a record day, a day to put in the
papers, but now it is nothing at all extraordinary. In shooting, as in
everything else, the standard has risen, and we are less easily
satisfied. It is an age of great expectations; don't you think so?"

"I don't know," said Hope again; but her brow clouded, and presently she
asked in an anxious little voice, "Do you really think the standard has
risen in everything! Would it be more difficult to do well in--er--in
any profession, for instance, than it was a dozen years ago! Would you
have to be much cleverer?"

"Oh dear, yes! certainly you would. It is a different thing altogether.
A dozen years ago people were easily pleased, and ready to make
allowances, but nothing short of perfection satisfies us nowadays. The
days of the amateur are past; even professionals need constant study to
maintain their high standard."

"Y-es," assented Hope faintly. She thought of her poor little songs, of
Theo's "worrying" story, and Madge's poster-like pictures, and felt a
sinking of heart that took away her appetite for scones and plum-cake.
She and her sisters had thought themselves geniuses at dear little
Leabourne, but three months' experience of London had brought a bitter
disillusionment. She stared at the ground, and Mr Merrilies in his turn
stared at her charming profile, and sighed to think that the prettiest
girls were generally the most stupid. He was unfeignedl