Arrived at the very delightful beech wood which formed a pleasant place of encampment for tea-parties, Canon Wrottesley could only smile absently at the picnic-baskets, and appear wrapped in thought when addressed; he might have been mentally preparing his next Sunday's sermon. Miss Abingdon thought that he was doing so and respected him for it; she even tried to attune her mind to his, and endeavoured to see vanity of vanities in this informal gathering of friends. 'We do not think enough of serious things,' she said. The inhabitants of Sedgwick put on sporting airs and curiously cut overcoats on two days in each year. The weather for the occasion is nearly always cloudless, and the townsfolk have begun to think that either they are very clever in arranging the date of their local function, or that the clerk of the weather is deeply interested in Sedgwick Races. On this particular day the sun flickered as usual through the clean leaves and boughs of the beech wood, doing its best to lend an air of picturesqueness to lobster salads and aspics, and shone brilliantly on servants, with their coats off, unpacking hampers at rows of long tables, and on people busily engaged in the inartistic business of eating. In the paddock there was an unusual number of horses being led round and round in a ring, and some well-known bookies--not often seen at the little provincial meeting--were present with their raucous cries and their money-bags. Kitty Sherard carried a pair of field-glasses on a long strap, and consulted from time to time a little gold-bound pocket-book in which she added up figures with a business-like air. She believed in Ormiston, which Sir Nigel Christopherson was riding, and she had something on Lamplighter as well. She knew every bookmaker on the course by sight, and had as much knowledge of the field as any one in the ring. And she looked exactly like some very beautiful child, and carried a parasol of rose-coloured chiffon beneath which her complexion and eyes appeared to great advantage. She smiled whether winning or losing, and ate a tiny luncheon with an epicurean air. At four o'clock in the afternoon it is an accepted custom at Sedgwick Races for every one to have tea before the last event, and then horses are put to in coaches and carriages, and those who have attended the meeting whether for business or pleasure drive back to their own homes, or go slowly downhill in a long string to the little railway station where, for two days at least in the year, the local station-master is a person of importance.