"Don’t you think," Miss Jeanie suggested, "that he’d better sit on your right hand and Mrs. Dewar on your left, with Miss Bethune between Mr. and Mrs. Dewar, and I’ll separate the gentlemen?" "We mustn’t think of ourselves on occasions like these," Miss Maggie said, with just a tinge of reproof in her voice; "it’s not a matter to be settled hastily." "Well, there’s not many ways we can sit unless you give up having Mr. Dewar at the bottom of the table," Miss Jeanie responded sharply. "That," Miss Maggie replied solemnly, "is a necessity—because of the blessing." So, after all, Miss Jeanie had it her way. Mr. Wycherly had assuredly never been at a similar tea-party. At the very beginning of the meal his polite commonplaces to Miss Maggie were drowned by the minister’s voice, as with uplifted hand he asked a lengthy blessing. Mr. Wycherly was rather startled, but he bent his head decorously, and when it was over continued his sentence where he had broken off. Mrs. Dewar was so odiously patronising to the Misses Moffat that Mr. Wycherly unconsciously ranged himself on their side, devoting himself to the entertainment of Miss Maggie, so that she became hopelessly flustered and forgot to ask Mrs. Dewar if she would take some more tea—an omission pointed out by the neglected lady with some asperity. Mr. Wycherly filled the soul of Miss Jeanie with rapture by telling her how Montagu and Edmund were consumed with envy because they were not invited. When tea was over and they repaired to the front parlour he looked anxiously at Miss Esperance. Surely the stipulated hour must be up. The Misses Moffat were quite endurable: kind and simple and almost pathetic in their tremulous eagerness to please. But Mrs. Dewar was getting on his nerves, and she insisted on addressing her conversation to him as though she were on much more familiar terms with him than the rest of the party, a dreadful supposition not to be borne for an instant. "Perhaps," said Miss Maggie, beaming upon her guests, "the gentlemen would like a game of draughts." Mr. Wycherly’s heart went down into his boots. Some years ago he would truthfully have said he didn’t play draughts; since then, however, Mr. Gloag had taught him that he, in his turn, might teach the little boys; and Mr. Wycherly was scrupulously accurate in all his statements. Miss Esperance came to the rescue. "I fear," said she, "that we must be going. We promised the children that we would be home by about six." Miss Esperance never made any plan that she did not intend to carry out, and five minutes later she and Mr. Wycherly were on their way home. The little boys were waiting for them at the gate and volunteered to take Mr. Wycherly for a walk.