The rain falls in heavy torrents, the trees bow and creak most mournfully, the rose leaves--sweet-scented and pink as glowing morn--are scattered along the walks, or else, lifted high in air by vehement gusts of wind, are dashed hither and thither in a mazy dance full of passion and despair. "Just three o'clock," says Dulce, drearily, "and what weather!" "It is always bad on your day," says Julia, with a carefully suppressed yawn. Julia, when yawning, is not pretty. "I remember when I was here last year, that Thursday, as a rule, was the most melancholy day in the week." Indeed, as she speaks, she looks more than melancholy, almost aggrieved. She has donned her most sensational garments (there is any amount of red about them) and her most recherche cap to greet the country, and naught cometh but the rain. "I don't know anything more melancholy at any time than one's at-home day," says Dicky Browne, meditatively, and very sorrowfully; "It is like Sunday, it puts every one out of sorts, and creates evil tempers all round. I never yet knew any family that didn't go down to zero when brought face to face with the fact that to-day they must receive their friends." "It's a pity you can't talk sense," says Dulce, with a small curl of her upper lip. "It's a pity I _can_, you mean. I am too above-board, too genuine for the times in which we live. My candor will be my ruin!" says Mr. Browne, hopelessly unabashed. "It will!" declares Roger, in a tone that perhaps it will be wise not to go into. "I suppose nobody will come here to-day," says Portia, somewhat disappointedly; they have been indoors all day, and have become so low in spirit, that even the idea of possible visitors is to be welcomed with delight. "Nobody," returns Sir Mark, "except the Boers and Miss Gaunt, and _they_ are utter certainties; they always come; they never fail us; they are thoroughly safe people in every respect." "If Miss Gaunt inflicts herself upon us to-day (which the gods forbid), be sure you pitch into her about the cook she sent you," says Roger, gloomily, turning to Dulce. "That will be a topic of conversation at all events; you owe me a debt of gratitude for suggesting it." "Well I shan't pay it," says Miss Blount, with decision. "Well you _ought_. As a rule, the attempts at conversation down here are calculated to draw tears to the eyes of any intellectual person." "But why?" asks Portia, indolently. "It is utterly simple," says Roger, mildly. "There is nothing to talk about; you cannot well ask people what they had for dinner yesterday, without being rude, and there are no theatres, or concerts, or clubs to discuss, and nobody ever dies (the country is fatally healthy), and nobody ever gets married (because there is nobody to marry), and nothing is ever born, because they were all born years ago, or else have made up their minds never to be born at all. It is, in fact, about as unsatisfactory a neighborhood as any one could wish to inhabit."