“I mean the wrong way. Now, father, don’t you be a-working yourself up. I can look after myself, and ain’t that just what I’m doing? Mother, I vow your cap will beat the one I made for the Duchess of Queensberry all to nothing. Now, won’t the children be pleased when they find those cakes all piping hot, mother? They ought to be in soon now--back from Rector’s. I’d like to try the little gown on my poppet ere you put her to rest to-night.” * * * * * It was the first party Sir Jasper had invited to Standish Hall since the death of his wife, and lavish as was his hospitality, the loss of that incomparable woman had never been more painfully felt. A widower-forlornness was over everything. Dusty, flowerless, unkempt the parlours; discomfort, an open negligence of refined detail, the lack of the controlling hand, in fine, was sensible to all his guests. The Christmas dinner was over, and the ladies had retired. If you had cared to have examined the bottles in rows on the floor, or the cut-glass decanters on the table, you would have found that the company had drawn considerably on Sir Jasper’s generous cellar, and had not scrupled to mix very freely. Sir Jasper and his youngest male guest, Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs, were at the height of an argument, egged on and applauded by good-natured Squire Upshott, and that saturnine rake, Sir James Devlin, while Lawyer Grinder, from Canterbury, leaned back, smiling grimly, his grey fingers round his glass, his grey eyes acute, his large ears pricked outside his scratch wig for any business advantage the holiday dissipation should lay open. “Pshaw! My dear fellow, the girl’s been three years in Paris, I tell you! You’ll not have me believe she’s better than her neighbours. Why, don’t I know all about her? Isn’t her father squatting on a bit of land that juts into my ring fence--’pon honour, like a fly in a man’s honey--eh, Grinder? As handsome a slut as I ever laid eyes on, if that’s the bouncer I saw at church this morning. If you’re after her, lad, go in and win! If not, step aside, and make room for your elders!” Mr. Jocelyn Bellairs took a draught from the beaker in front of him, then cast rather a wild glance at his host. “You!” cried he. “You step in with Pamela Pounce! My dear Sir Jasper, I do not intend to be uncivil, but the idea is too droll!” “How now? Is Miss so difficult? You know ’tis but a milliner?” “Ay, I know more of her, I dare swear, than you do. Difficult? Well, Sir Jasper, you or anyone may try their chances so far as I am concerned--I would not give that for them”--snapping his fingers. “Pure waste! When I tell you that I have failed----” The unconscious cockscombry was greeted with a shout of laughter. “Hark to him!” cried old Upshott. “Odds life!” jeered Sir Jasper. “You stimulate me! So fastidious?” “Nay!” Young Bellairs flung a fine black eye about him. “So virtuous,” said he, his voice sinking quite an octave deeper than its usual gay note.