At this moment he is looking bored and _ennuye_ to the last degree, as he goes to one of the windows, and stands idly gazing out over the park and woodlands. Not once, as he crosses the room do his eyes fall upon me. And yet surely I am now better worth regarding than on those first days at Hazelton, when he appeared so anxious to make me his own. It is the latter end of July, warm sultry, glorious July, and I am once more the Phyllis of old. My cheeks are round and soft and childlike as of yore, my eyes are bright and clear and have lost their unnatural largeness, my figure has regained its original healthy elasticity; yet Marmaduke heeds me not. Suddenly, with some abruptness, and without turning to look at me, he says:--- "Don't you think it would be an improvement to ask some people down here, eh? It might make things more cheerful for you. Just the old lot, you know." So at last he has made an open confession of the dullness that I feel sure has been consuming him; he has discovered that a very little of my society, taken singly, would go a long way. Well, I too will let _him_ see how gladly I shall welcome strangers to our hearth. "I am so glad you mentioned it," I say, briskly; "I have been wishing of late for some break-in on our monotony. Harriet and Bebe will come, I feel sure, and, oh! poor little Chips, I had forgotten he is at present broiling in India; but Chandos will not refuse, I think; and Blanche Going, and Sir Mark Gore." These latter I add with some innocent malice. "Sir Mark Gore is in Norway," replies 'Duke, stiffly. "Indeed! Then we must put up with his loss. But Blanche Going--where is she?" "Probably in Jamaica, for all I know, or care," unaimiably. "What an answer! Poor Blanche! if she could only hear you. You should remember, 'Duke, that flippancy, though excusable in a woman, is simply brutal in a man. Solitude disagrees with you; you grow downright rude." "If I was rude, I apologize," returns he, carelessly. Then, having whistled straight through his favorite air most successfully, and wound up with an elaborate flourish, he walks through the open window on to the balcony outside. "Very good; ask them all as soon as you like," He says, over his shoulder with a languid nod; "and go for a stroll the day is too fine to spend indoors." --- "I was going to beg an invitation if I did not receive one," says Harriet, a week later, as she returns my kiss of welcome. "I was growing very uneasy about you. But," tapping my cheek, "I might have spared myself any worry on the subject of your health, as you are looking provokingly well." Bebe declares I have caused them all more trouble than I am worth, whereupon I take her in custody and march her upstairs and run her into her bedroom. Just before dinner Chandos arrives, having been driven over from a country-house some miles distant, where he has been staying.