It happened, therefore, that from the beginning to the end of that long ramble, he was never in Mrs. Tregonell's society. She and Jessie walked steadily ahead with their dogs, while the sportsmen tramped slowly behind Mr. Hamleigh and the two girls. "Our friend seems to be very much taken by your sisters," said Leonard to Captain Vandeleur. "My sisters are deuced taking girls," answered Jack, puffing at his seventeenth cigarette; "though I suppose it isn't my business to say so. There's nothing of the professional beauty about either of 'em." "Distinctly not!" said Leonard. "But they've plenty of _chic_--plenty of go--_savoir faire_--and all that kind of thing, don't you know. They're the most companionable girls I ever met with!" "They're uncommonly jolly little buffers!" said Leonard, kindly, meaning it for the highest praise. "They've no fool's flesh about them," said Jack; "and they can make a fiver go further than any one I know. A man might do worse than marry one of them." "Hardly!" thought Leonard, "unless he married both." "It would be a fine thing for Dop if Mr. Hamleigh were to come to the scratch," mused Jack. * * * * * "I wonder what was Leonard's motive in asking Mr. Hamleigh to stay at Mount Royal?" said Christabel, suddenly, after she and Jessie had been talking of indifferent subjects. "I hope he had not any motive, but that the invitation was the impulse of the moment, without rhyme or reason," answered Miss Bridgeman. "Why?" "Because if he had a motive, I don't think it could be a good one." "Might he not think it just possible that he was finding a husband for one of his friend's sisters?" speculated Christabel. "Nonsense, my dear! Leonard is not quite a fool. If he had a motive, it was something very different from any concern for the interests of Dop or Mop--I will call them Dop and Mop: they are so like it."