As the hour drew near at which the Chancellors were to arrive, Mrs Eyrecourt got quite into a flutter of excitement. Such a state of things was very unusual with her, well accustomed as she was to society and its usages. Beauchamp felt amused. "It is all on my account, I fear, that poor Gertrude is in such a fuss. She is only laying up disappointment for herself. I do wish she would leave me to manage my own affairs," he thought to himself, though to please her he hung about the house idle all the afternoon, in case of the Halswood party possibly appearing before their time. Gertrude's excitement was not only on his account, keenly anxious though she was that he and Adelaide Chancellor should impress each other agreeably; there was to Mrs Eyrecourt a peculiar and not unnatural feeling of gratification in receiving as her guests for the first time the head of the family--Mr Chancellor of Halswood himself--and his belongings. For, undoubted as was the position of the Winsley Eyrecourts in their own county and among their own set, that of the owner of Halswood was several pegs higher in the social scale, and Herbert Chancellor had more reason than many people for thinking himself rather a big man. But this second cause of his sister's "fuss," Beauchamp's less excitable, more individually selfish nature neither suspected nor would have sympathised with. It was all very well to "call cousins" with the Halswood people; but Gertrude sometimes bothered herself unnecessarily. In her place, Beauchamp said to himself, he certainly would not have gone out of his way to invite these strangers to take up their abode with them for a whole week. He felt bored even in anticipation. He hoped certainly Roma's attention would be distracted from teasing him with those silly questions of hers, but he more than half wished he was back at Wareborough.