"You wouldn't like to see Christabel fade and languish like the flowers in your drawing-room," he urged, when Mrs. Tregonell wanted her niece to make a round of London visits, instead of going down to Maidenhead on the coach, to lunch somewhere up the river. Not at Skindle's--or at any other hotel--but in the lazy sultry quiet of some sequestered nook below the hanging woods of Clieveden. "I'm sure you can spare her just for to-day--such a perfect spring day. It would be a crime to waste such sunlight and such balmy air in town drawing-rooms. Could not you strain a point, dear Mrs. Tregonell, and come with us?" Aunt Diana shook her head. No, the fatigue would be too much--she had lived such a quiet life at Mount Royal, that a very little exertion tired her. Besides she had some calls to make; and then there was a dinner at Lady Bulteel's, to which she must take Christabel, and an evening party afterwards. Christabel shrugged her shoulders impatiently. "I am beginning to hate parties," she said. "They are amusing enough when one is in them--but they are all alike--and it would be so much nicer for us to live our own lives, and go wherever Angus likes. Don't you think you might defer the calls, and come with us to-day, Auntie dear?" Auntie dear shook her head. "Even if I were equal to the fatigue, Belle, I couldn't defer my visits. Thursday is Lady Onslow's day--and Mrs. Trevannion's day--and Mrs. Vansittart's day--and when people have been so wonderfully kind to us, it would be uncivil not to call." "And you will sit in stifling drawing-rooms, with the curtains lowered to shut out the sunlight--and you will drink ever so much more tea than is good for you--and hear a lot of people prosing about the same things over and over again--Epsom and the Opera--and Mrs. This and Miss That--and Mrs. Somebody's new book, which everybody reads and talks about, just as if there were not another book in the world, or as if the old book counted for nothing," concluded Christabel, contemptuously, having by this time discovered the conventional quality of kettle-drum conversations, wherein people discourse authoritatively about books they have not read, plays they have not seen, and people they do not know. Mr. Hamleigh had his own way, and carried off Christabel and Miss Bridgeman to the White Horse Cellar, with the faithful Major in attendance. "You will bring Belle home in time to dress for Lady Bulteel's dinner," said Mrs. Tregonell, impressively, as they were departing. "Mind, Major, I hold you responsible for her return. You are the only sober person in the party. I believe Jessie Bridgeman is as wild as a hawk, when she gets out of my sight." Jessie's shrewd grey eyes twinkled at the reproof.