"I am really losing my head to-day," he said. "I had another letter to tell you of, that I received at the same time as my sister's." He felt in his pocket again. "Ah yes, here it is." He glanced at it for a moment, then put it into her hands. It was from Roma, written in a very different tone from Mrs Eyrecourt's stiff little note, and, though nominally addressed to Beauchamp, evidently intended for them both. "An idea has struck me," wrote Roma, "that though Gertrude cannot now be at Wareborough for your marriage, I might manage to be there instead of her, if you and Eugenia (I may call her so, may I not?) would like it. I do not like the idea of no one of your own side of the house being present. We leave town on Tuesday--Gertrude, as she will have told you, and the children, to join the Chancellors at Torquay, and I to go north again for a month. This is sooner than we had intended, so I have not made any plans for my journey, but I am sure Mary Dalrymple will take me in, if you will ask her about it. Please answer by return, and then I can write to her myself. I do hope my proposal will not be unwelcome." "How very nice of her!" exclaimed Eugenia, with sparkling eyes. "I am delighted she is coming. Of course we should have asked her at first if we had known she would care to come. I am so pleased, are not you, Beauchamp?" "Oh, yes, I don't mind. I have no objection to her coming," said Captain Chancellor, indifferently and somewhat absently. He had taken another letter from his pocket and had been glancing over it while Eugenia read Roma's note. Now he folded it up and put it away, but the perusal of it seemed to have brought a little cloud again to his face. "Beauchamp, you are very ungrateful. You don't deserve your cousin-- Miss Eyrecourt I mean--to be so good to you," said Eugenia, reproachfully. "Don't I? I fancy I fully deserve all the goodness I get from _her_," replied Beauchamp, with a tinge of bitterness in his tone which made Eugenia tell him he had certainly been rubbed the wrong way by some one or something, he was so moody and captious, which little scolding he took in good part and exerted himself to a greater appearance of amiability, till the few hours of his visit were over and he was due again at Bridgenorth.