Jean looked up with a little surprise at this speech. "I have no desire," she said, "my dear Margaret, to set up my judgment in that way. We're one, we're not two, we have always been of the same mind. Perhaps we will hear something more satisfactory about his family; for I have a real hope you will take the young man up. He has very nice manners, and his touch is just extraordinary. It would be such a good thing for Lilias, too. To see him at the piano is better than many a lesson. So I hope you will take the best view you can of him. To bring him to dinner was very startling to me, but it is fine that Lilias has such a sense of hospitality." All this Jean said with a manner so entirely undisturbed that Margaret could not tell what to think. It was she who was abashed and confused--she who had supposed it possible that her sister could be moved by the young man's nonsense. Indeed, when she came to think it over, she felt almost a conviction that it was she herself who was mistaken. Jean evidently was totally unenlightened in respect to any intentions he might have. It must have been she who had made the mistake. She was not fond of acknowledging herself in the wrong, even to herself, but it was fortunate at least that no one else knew the delusion she had been under, and still more fortunate that now that delusion was past. CHAPTER XX. The framework of society at Murkley was of a simple description. There were no great gatherings in that corner of the countryside. A dinner-party happened now and then, but these were very rare, for most of the best families dined in the middle of the day in a primitive manner, and a great dinner meant an overthrow of all the habits of the house. Usually friends came to tea, and remained, as in the manse, when the majority was young, to dance: or in other houses, when the majority were older people, to play a friendly rubber, with a round game for such youth as might be of the party. The routine was completely stereotyped; for human nature is very uninventive, especially in the country. Sometimes there was an attempt to vary this procedure by "a little music;" but in those days music was less cultivated than now, and a few pieces of the "Battle of Prague" kind, were usually all that were to be found in a young lady's repertoire, varied perhaps by "Sweet Spirit, hear my Prayer," and other elegant morceaux of that description. And it is much to be feared that, had the music been of a higher order, it would have been relished still less; for however little the art of conversation may be cultivated as an art, and however little entertainment there may be in it, everybody resents the stoppage of talk, and the gloomy countenance of even the most æsthetic of parties, when compelled to silent listening, continues to prove how much more attractive are our own sweet voices than anything that supersedes them. Society in Murkley would willingly put up with a few songs.