Thus apostrophised by an agitated _soprano_ at the drawing-room door, and an impatient _tenore robusto_ in the entrance-hall, Wilkins, the amiable and timid London butler, who had played the character of Job’s comforter to Alice’s _Didone abandonata_ on the memorable evening of the first of September, made two or three steps in the direction of the drawing-room, then twisting round with a sudden jerk, as though he had been worked by machinery with which somebody was playing tricks, rushed frantically into the hall, and handing his master a wrong bag of shot exclaimed, without any breath left-- “This--a--is them, sir; and my mistress--a--says----” “Swan-shot, you fool--that is, Wilkins, big enough to roll over a bullock! It’s the snipe-shot I’m looking for. No, not that. Don’t you know snipe-shot when you see it? When the scent’s getting duller every minute, too! I ought to have been out these two hours. That’s right, my good fellow: don’t be a month about it--give it me. I shall be home to dinner.” “But my mistress particularly wishes to speak----” faltered poor Wilkins. Harry, flinging down with an angry gesture the shot-belt he had just filled, and muttering that he had better give up going out at all, strode off to the drawing-room, and putting his head in through the partially opened door, as though he were afraid of being taken prisoner if he trusted himself bodily in the apartment, exclaimed-- “How, then, little woman, what is it? Quick, please, for I want to be off.” “There is an invitation just arrived from Allerton House for Tuesday week. What am I to say?” “Oh, we must go, of course. I want you to get intimate with Lady Allerton, she’s a charming woman, and Lord George is a good little fellow in his way, though an awfully bad shot. Dinner, I suppose?” “Yes; but, Harry, wait one moment and listen to me!” exclaimed Alice. “You need not be in such a hurry; you will have plenty of time for that horrid shooting before six o’clock.” “Horrid shooting, indeed! Much you know about it,” muttered the victimised sportsman, inwardly chafing at the delay; “it will be horrid shooting in one sense, if I am hindered much longer. The scent won’t lie when the dew is off, and I may as well go out with a walking-stick as with a gun, for there will be nothing to shoot at.” “Well, I’ll let you go directly, you impatient, silly boy,” returned Alice, smiling at the serious, business-like view her husband took of his amusement. “The only thing I wish to say is, that if we accept this invitation, we shall be almost certain to meet the Duke and Duchess of Brentwood there; and you know I’ve been waiting for you to go with me, day after day, and I’ve never returned their visit yet. You must take me to call before Tuesday week; I’ve been quite rude already.”