"What for! Why, to be introduced to Mrs. Ludlow! By the way, you seem to have left your eyes in the other room, Arthur. You have not seen Mr. Ludlow before, have you?" "I beg Mr. Ludlow a thousand pardons!" said Caterham, who had forgotten the announcement of Geoffrey's marriage, and who hailed the recalling of the past with intense gratification. "I'm delighted to see you, Mr. Ludlow; and very grateful to you for coming to fill up so agreeably some of our young lady's blank time. If I thought you were a conventional man, I should make you a pretty Conventional speech of gratulation on your marriage; but as I'm sure you're something much better, I leave that to be inferred." "You are very good," said Geoff. "Annie was just saying that I should introduce My wife to her, and--" "Of course, of course!" said Caterham, a little dashed by the familiarity of the "Annie." "I hope, to see Mrs. Ludlow here; not merely as a visitor to a wretched bachelor like myself; but I'm sure my mother would be very pleased to welcome her, and will, if you please, do herself the honour of calling on Mrs. Ludlow. "Thank you, Arthur; you are very kind, and I appreciate it," said Annie, in a low voice, crossing to his chair; "but my going will be a different thing; I mean, as an old friend of Geoff's, _I_ may go and see his wife." An old friend of Geoff's! Still the same bond between them, in which he had no part--an intimacy with which he had nothing to do. "Of course," said he; "nothing could be more natural." "Little Annie coming to be introduced to Margaret!" thought Geoff, as he walked homeward, the lesson over. This, then, was to be Margaret's first introduction to his old friend. Not much fear of their not getting on together. And yet, on reflection, Geoff was not so sure of that, after all. CHAPTER VI. AT HOME.