His astute helpmate could hardly refrain from smiling at the queer embarrassed expression of the Squire's frank face--she read his feelings so well! Indeed poor Hubert was the worst dissembler alive. He looked wistfully at his two confederates, but there was small chance of succour from that quarter. Helen's glance met her mother's for a second, and she bit her scarlet lip once, but remained perfectly silent. Alan was brushing away a stray crumb or two from the velvet sleeve of his riding-coat, with a provoking air of absolute unconcern. Vavasour was so intensely hospitable, that he would just as soon have thought of stabbing a guest in his sleep, as of grudging him entertainment, besides there was no earthly reason why either of the names just mentioned should be distasteful to him, or to any one else present; if he felt any real objection, it was more like a presentiment impossible to put into words. Nevertheless there was an unusual gravity in his voice, as he replied-- "Rather an unnecessary question of Max's, dear Mildred. He ought to know, by this time, that his friends are quite as welcome here as my own. As it happens, we have ample room for those two guns during the _early_ (the word was marked) part of September. So many anxious parents will be contending for the possession of Clydesdale, that he will scarcely waste his golden time here beyond a fortnight. Few men are fonder of being persecuted with the attentions of your sex than that very eligible Earl. I believe he thinks it is no use being _the parti_ of England if you don't reap its advantages, before as well as after marriage. I dare say Bertie will stay longer; the mothers, at all events, don't hunt him. I hope he will, for there's no pleasanter boy in a house, and his detrimentalism won't hurt us here. Will you write at once and say that we shall be charmed to see them all?" Those last words were spoken with rather an unnatural distinctness; it seemed as though it cost the Squire an effort to utter them, and he left the room almost immediately, muttering something about "people waiting for him in his study." After a few minutes more of insignificant conversation not worth recording, the cousins, too, went out to get ready for their ride. Lady Mildred stayed her hand for a moment--she was crumbling bread into cream, carefully, for the Maltese dog's luncheon--and looked after them with a pensive expression on her face, in which mingled a shade of pity. Just so much compassion may have softened, long ago, the rigid features of some abbess on her tribunal, when after pronouncing the fatal _Vade in pace_, she saw an unhappy nun led out between the executioners, to expiate her broken vows.