When the first Monday in November came Harry was still living at the rectory. Indeed, what other home had he in which to live? Other friends had become shy of him besides his uncle. He had been accustomed to receive many invitations. Young men who are the heirs to properties, and are supposed to be rich because they are idle, do get themselves asked about here and there, and think a great deal of themselves in consequence. "There's young Jones. He is fairly good-looking, but hasn't a word to say for himself. He will do to pair off with Miss Smith, who'll talk for a dozen. He can't hit a hay-stack, but he's none the worse for that. We haven't got too many pheasants. He'll be sure to come when you ask him,--and he'll be sure to go." So Jones is asked, and considers himself to be the most popular man in London. I will not say that Harry's invitations had been of exactly that description; but he too had considered himself to be popular, and now greatly felt the withdrawal of such marks of friendship. He had received one "put off"--from the Ingoldsbys of Kent. Early in June he had promised to be there in November. The youngest Miss Ingoldsby was very pretty, and he, no doubt, had been gracious. She knew that he had meant nothing,--could have meant nothing. But he might come to mean something, and had been most pressingly asked. In September there came a letter to him to say that the room intended for him at Ingoldsby had been burnt down. Mrs. Ingoldsby was so extremely sorry, and so were the "girls!" Harry could trace it all up. The Ingoldsbys knew the Greens, and Mrs. Green was Sister to Septimus Jones, who was absolutely the slave,--the slave, as Harry said, repeating the word to himself with emphasis,--of Augustus Scarborough. He was very unhappy, not that he cared in the least for any Miss Ingoldsby, but that he began to be conscious that he was to be dropped.