She cannot compel adoration from her young-lady friends: not solely because she is their successful rival, but partly because she does not possess the art of winning them. She has not the tact to conceal her superiority, to conciliate their prejudices, to win their friendship. Now, Walter Lisgard, who was of course adored by women, was almost as popular with men. There were half-a-dozen or so of people--among whom were Ralph Derrick and Arthur Haldane--who had seen him under circumstances of extreme annoyance, and had been disenchanted of the smiling kindly boy. There was Sir Richard too--but there were reasons enough why Walter should not possess his brother's good-will, and having failed to win it, it was the nature of such a man to be embarrassed in his presence. Dislike, nay even want of appreciation, will often paralyse the most agreeable of our fellow-creatures, and make them duller than those who are at all times equally tedious. But if Walter had been in Rose's place, I think he would have managed to get on better than she did in that _tête-à-tête_ with her peccant sister-in-law. No woman can conceal her annoyance from its object, if that be a person of her own sex; she can only be desperately civil. At all events, husband and brother were received by these two young ladies as though they had been their lovers; and then the tea came up, itself a diversion, which they prolonged to an inordinate limit. Who is so fortunate that he has never been compelled to Tea against Time! The dinner-hour at the Abbey, however, in consonance with ancient county habits, was a somewhat early one--six o'clock--and there was a considerable amount of evening to be got through. Sir Richard, in these terrible straits, proposed a game at whist; and the four accordingly sat down at the velvet card-table--scarcely ever used at Mirk--the gentlemen to contend for shilling points, and the ladies for postage-stamps. Mr Charles Lamb has informed us that he is inclined to think that there _may_ be such a thing as _sick whist_; and if that admirable humorist had witnessed this particular rubber, he would have had his suspicions confirmed. Poor Walter thought grimly of his last experience in that way with the _Landrails,_ and could not help making an estimate of how many cycles of years it would take him, with average luck, to win back the money lost upon that occasion at the present stakes. Immersed in this calculation, he made a series of infamous blunders, for which Letty, who was, of course, his partner, reproved him with that unsparing severity which this delightful science induces even in an angelic partner: it is at the whist-table that the trodden worm will turn with the most energetic writhings. Sir Richard, on the other hand (who scarcely ever ventured upon any finesse except that of Ace, Queen), was put in the highest spirits, and became as offensively triumphant as his chivalric nature would permit. Rose, poor girl, sincerely bewailed her husband's