"Chipchase? Ahem! I met an uncommon pretty girl of that name down in Suffolk last autumn, when I was staying at Hogden's place." At this juncture the door opened, and the object of all this maternal solicitude entered the room. Her mother did Blanche Bloxam scant justice when she called her a good-looking girl. She was more than that; she might most certainly have been called a very good-looking girl of the thoroughly Saxon type--tall and well made, with a profusion of fair sunny hair, and deep blue eyes. Blanche was a girl no man would ever overlook, wherever he might come across her. "What state secrets are you two talking," she exclaimed, "that you pay no attention to the bell? Come to lunch, mamma, please; for we have been playing lawn tennis all the morning, and are well-nigh distraught with hunger." Lady Mary rose and followed her daughter to the dining-room, where the whole of the house party were assembled round the luncheon-table. It consisted, besides the family and Mr. Cottrell, of a Mr. and Mrs. Evesham and their two daughters--"such amiable girls, you know," as Lady Mary always said of them; a Mr. and Mrs. Sartoris, a young married couple; Jim Bloxam, the dragoon; and a Captain Braybrooke, a brother officer of his. "Come along, mother," exclaimed Jim. "Mrs. Sartoris has given me such a dusting at lawn tennis this morning that no amount of brown sherry and pigeon-pie will support me under the ignominy of my defeat." "Thank you, Mrs. Sartoris," said Lady Mary, laughing. "I am very glad indeed, Jim, that somebody has been good enough to take the conceit out of you. But what do all you good people propose doing with yourselves this afternoon? There are a certain number of riding-horses; and of course there's the carriage, Mrs. Evesham." "Don't you trouble, mother," exclaimed Jim Bloxam; "we are going upon an expedition of discovery. Mrs. Sartoris has got a brother in the army. She don't quite recollect his regiment; and beyond that it is in England, she does not know precisely where he is quartered. But he is in the something-somethieth, and we are going to see if we can find him in Rockcliffe Camp." "Don't be so absurd, Captain Bloxam," rejoined Mrs. Sartoris. "But I am told, Lady Mary, it is a pretty walk to the camp, and that there is a grand view over the Channel on the south side of it." "It is the very thing, mamma," observed Blanche. "It is our duty to absorb as much ozone as possible while we are down here, in order to fit us for the fatigues of the season which, I trust, are in store for us." "Getting perilously near Commonstone," whispered Pansey Cottrell, who happened to be sitting next to his hostess.