Miss Marjoribanks had so many things to think of next morning that she found her cousin, who was rather difficult to get rid of, much in her way: naturally the young man was briefless, and came on circuit for the name of the thing, and was quite disposed to dawdle the first morning, and attach himself to the active footsteps of Lucilla; and for her part, she had things to occupy her so very much more important. For one thing, one of Dr Marjoribanks's little dinner-parties was to take place that evening, which would be the first under the new régime, and was naturally a matter of some anxiety to all parties. "I shall go down and ask Mrs Chiley to come with the Colonel," said Lucilla. "I have always meant to do that. We can't have a full dinner-party, you know, as long as the house is so shabby; but I am sure Mrs Chiley will come to take care of me." "To take care of you!--in your father's house! Do you think they'll bite?" said the Doctor grimly; but as for Lucilla, she was quite prepared for that. "I must have a chaperone, you know," she said. "I don't say it is not quite absurd; but then, at first, I always make it a point to give in to the prejudices of society. That is how I have always been so successful," said the experienced Lucilla. "I never went in the face of anybody's prejudices. Afterwards, you know, when one is known----" The Doctor laughed, but at the same time he sighed. There was nothing to be said against Mrs Chiley, who had, on the whole, as women go, a very superior training, and knew what a good dinner was; but it was the beginning of the revolution of which Dr Marjoribanks, vaguely oppressed with the idea of new paper, new curtains, and all that was involved in the entrance of Mr Holden the upholsterer into the house, did not see the end. He acquiesced, of course, since there was nothing else for it: but it must be confessed that the spectre of Mrs Chiley sitting at his right hand clouded over for the Doctor the pleasant anticipation of the evening. If it had been possible to put her at the head of the table beside Lucilla, whom she was to come to take care of, he could have borne it better--and to be sure it would have been a great deal more reasonable; but then that was absolutely out of the question, and the Doctor gave in with a sigh. Thus it was that he began to realise the more serious result of that semi-abdication into which he had been beguiled. The female element, so long peacefully ignored and kept at a distance, had come in again in triumph and taken possession, and the Doctor knew too well by the experience of a long life what a restless and troublesome element it was. He had begun to feel that it had ceased to be precisely amusing as he took his place in his brougham. It was good sport to see Lucilla make an end of Tom, and put her bridle upon the stiff neck of Nancy; but when it came to changing the character of the Doctor's dinners, his intellect naturally got more obtuse, and he did not see the joke.