"I wonder you care to go to a theatre without Hamleigh." "It is very cruel of you to say that!" exclaimed Christabel, her eyes brightening with girlish tears, which her pride checked before they could fall. "You ought to know that I am wretched without him--and that I want to lose the sense of my misery in dreamland. The theatre for me is what opium was for Coleridge and De Quincey." "I understand," said Major Bree; "'you are not merry, but you do beguile the thing you are by seeming otherwise.'" "You will go with us?" "Of course, if Mrs. Tregonell does not object." "I shall be very grateful to you for taking care of them," answered the dowager languidly, as she leant back in her carriage--a fine example of handsome middle-age: gracious, elegant, bearing every mark of good birth, yet with a worn look, as of one for whom fading beauty and decline of strength would come too swiftly. "I know I shall be tired to death when we get back to town." "I don't think London society suits you so well as the monotony of Mount Royal," said Major Bree. "No; but I am glad Christabel has had her first season. People have been extremely kind. I never thought we should have so many invitations." "You did not know that beauty is the ace of trumps in the game of society." The garden party was as other parties of the same genus: strawberry ices and iced coffee in a tent under a spreading Spanish chestnut--music and recitations in a drawing-room, with many windows looking upon the bright swift river--and the picturesque roofs of Old Richmond--just that one little picturesque group of bridge and old tiled-gables which still remains--fine gowns, fine talk; a dash of the æsthetic element; strange colours, strange forms and fashions; pretty girls in grandmother bonnets; elderly women in limp Ophelia gowns, with tumbled frills and lank hair. Christabel and the Major walked about the pretty garden, and criticized all the eccentricities, she glad to keep aloof from her many admirers--safe under the wing of a familiar friend. "Five o'clock," she said; "that makes twenty-four hours. Do you think he will be back to-morrow?" "He? Might I ask whom you mean by that pronoun?" "Angus. His telegram this morning said that his aunt was really ill--not in any danger--but still quite an invalid, and that he would be obliged to stay a little longer than he had hoped might be needful, in order to cheer her. Do you think he will be able to come back to-morrow?" "Hardly, I fear. Twenty-four hours would be a very short time for the cheering process. I think you ought to allow him a week. Did you answer his telegram?" "Why, of course! I told him how miserable I was without him; but that he must do whatever was right and kind for his aunt. I wrote him a long letter before luncheon to the same effect. But, oh, I hope the dear old lady will get well very quickly!"