"Your honor!" stammered out Peter, in increased terror; "for Mr. John Moseley and Sir Edward, and youngerly gentlemen like, dress may do. Now, your honor, if--" and Peter, turning to Grace, bowed nearly to the floor--"I had such a sweet, most beautiful young lady to smile on me, I might wish to change; but, sir, my day has gone by." Peter sighed as the recollection of Patty Steele and his youthful love floated across his brain. Grace blushed and thanked him for the compliment, and gave her opinion that his gallantry merited a better costume. "Peter," said his master, decidedly, "I think Mrs. Moseley is right. If I should call on the viscountess (the Lady Juliana, who yet survived an ancient dowager of seventy), I shall want your attendance, and in your present garb you cannot fail to shock her delicate feelings. You remind me now I think, every time I look at you, of old Harry, the earl's gamekeeper, one of the most cruel men I ever knew." This decided the matter. Peter well knew that his master's antipathy to old Harry arose from his having pursued a poacher one day, in place of helping the Lady Juliana over a stile, in her flight from a bull that was playing his gambols in the same field; and not for the world would the faithful steward retain even a feature, if it brought unpleasant recollections to his kind master. He at one time thought of closing his innovations on his wardrobe, however, with a change of his nether garment; as after a great deal of study he could only make out the resemblance between himself and the obnoxious gamekeeper to consist in the leathern breeches. But fearful of some points escaping his memory in forty years, he tamely acquiesced in all John's alterations, and appeared at his station three days afterwards newly decked from head to foot in a more modern suit of snuff-color. The change once made, Peter greatly admired himself in a glass, and thought, could he have had the taste of Mr. John Moseley in his youth to direct his toilet, that the hard heart of Patty Steele would not always have continued so obdurate. Sir Edward wished to collect his neighbors round him once more before he left them for another four months; and accordingly the rector and his wife, Francis and Clara, the Haughtons, with a few others, dined at the Hall by invitation, the last day of their stay in Northamptonshire. The company had left the table to join the ladies, when Grace came into the drawing-room with a face covered with smiles and beaming with pleasure. "You look like the bearer of good news, Mrs. Moseley," cried the rector, catching a glimpse of her countenance as she passed. "Good! I sincerely hope and believe," replied Grace. "My letters from my brother announce that his marriage took place last week, and give us hopes of seeing them all in town within the month." "Married!" exclaimed Mr. Haughton, casting his eyes unconsciously on Emily, "my Lord Chatterton married! May I ask the name of the bride, my dear Mrs. Moseley?"