'This does not look much like being left out in the cold, does it?' says Margaret, rising, walking to the chimney-piece, and setting up the card against the dark background of the old oak; 'since it is our only invitation, it is well that it is such a smart one. What an odd fashion it is, when one comes to think of it, that a woman should consider it necessary to send these magnificent bits of pasteboard flying half over the country, merely to tell us that she is at home!' 'There is no need for us to do that,' rejoins Prue rather disconsolately; 'we are always at home.' 'We shall not be at home on the night of the 15th of September,' says Peggy, laughing, and passing her arm fondly round her sister, who, unable to keep away from the magnet of Mrs. Hartley's invitation, has followed it to the fireplace. 'The 15th of September,' repeats the other, dismayed; 'is it possible that it is not till the 15th of September? Oh, what a long time off! How I wish that I could fall asleep now, and only wake up on the very morning!' Peggy sighs. There is to her something terrible in her sister's eagerness, knowing, as she does, how little it has in common with the wholesome hearty hunger for pleasure of her age. But she speaks cheerfully: 'The play will be the better acted; the floor will be the better waxed.' 'I am sure that it was _he_ who reminded them to ask us; I am sure that they would never have remembered us but for _him_,' pursues the young girl, colouring with pleasure. 'He used to say--indeed,' still further brightening, 'he said it again not so long ago, that he always felt a sensation of emptiness about a room that I was not in.' 'Oh, Miss Lambton!' cries Franky, bursting into the room, and bringing with him a somewhat powerful agricultural odour, 'we have been having _such_ fun! we have been helping Alfred to fork manure. Nanny is _so_ cross; she is coming after me--oh, do not let her find me! do hide me somewhere!' But unfortunately Master Harborough's attendant is able to track him by another sense than sight, and from the shelter of Peggy's petticoat, magnanimously extended to protect him, he is presently drawn forth, and carried off, in company with his sister, to a purification profoundly deprecated by both. For the next four weeks the Hartley card of invitation remains enthroned in the place of honour on Peggy's chimney-piece. Festivities are not so rife in the neighbourhood of the little Red House that it runs any risk of being dethroned, or of even having its eminence shared. Freddy has been affectionately taxed by his betrothed with having been instrumental in its despatch, but he has delicately denied. 'I always think,' he says prettily, 'that there is a magnet in the heart of all good people, drawing them towards each other; so that you see, dear, there was no need for me.'