'No, no, no!' interrupted I emphatically and with some impatience, 'Pray do not think of such a thing. There is plenty of room in my own place for all my friends. My sole object in making the suggestion I did was to prevent your being pestered with the attentions of a lot of rough sportsmen, who, when they were tired of shooting, would find nothing better to do than to worry you and Miss Babiole to death. And you remember,' I ended, as a happy thought, 'how, when you came here, you insisted on privacy.' 'One may have too much even of such a good thing as one's own society,' said she, with an affected little laugh. 'I think I could bear a little attention now, with much equanimity, even from a sportsman who "could find nothing better to do." Of course, I could expect no more than that from gentlemen of such rank as your guests,' she added, rather venomously. 'But for a change even that might be acceptable.' Good heavens! The woman would not understand me. 'But Babiole!' I suggested quietly. 'Babiole is only a child; but even if she were not, a daughter of mine would be perfectly able to take care of herself, Mr. Maude.' After this snub, I could only bow and take myself off, spending the interval before my guests' arrival in schooling myself for the approaching ordeal. The first to arrive on the fifteenth were Lord Edgar Normanton and Mr. Richard Fussell, the latter, anxious to make the most of his annual taste of rank and fashion, having lain in wait for the former at King's Cross, and insisted on bearing him company during the entire journey. I met them at Ballater station at 2.15 in the afternoon, and was sorry to hear from Edgar, who never looked otherwise than the picture of robust health, and who was, moreover, getting fat, that he was far from well. 'I tell his lordship that he should take rowing exercise. Nothing like a good pull every day on the river to keep a man in condition,' urged Mr. Fussell, who was fifty inches round what had once been his waist, and who seemed to radiate health and happiness.