And so it happened that simultaneously with the major, in his elegant dinner costume, with his white neck-tie and button-hole bouquet, came honest Tom Ferguson, in the suit he had worn to church for at least six years or more, and which was anything but stylish and fashionable. But Tom was not a fashionable man, and made no pretense of being other than he was, but he did not eat in his shirt sleeves or commit any marked blunders at the dinner table, where six or seven courses were served, with Pierre as chief waiter and engineer. Reinette was an admirable hostess, and so managed to make her incongruous guests feel at home, that the dinner was a great success, and the fastidious major, who was seated far away from both grandma and Tom, did not think the less of Anna because of any shortcomings in her father or mother, though he knew they were not like the people of his world. But the Rossiters were, and they were Anna’s relations, and she was refined and cultivated, if her parents were not, he thought, for the glamour of love at first sight was over and round him, and Anna was very pretty in her white muslin dress, and very quiet and lady-like, he thought, and when, after the dinner was over, he walked with her upon one of the finished terraces and saw how well she carried herself and how small and delicately-shaped were her hands and feet—for he was one to notice all these things—he began vaguely to wonder how old she was and what his bachelor friends at the club would say if he should present her to them as his wife. The major was unquestionably attacked with a disease, the slightest symptoms of which he had never before had in his life, and when at last it was time for the guests to leave, and the Hetherton carriage came round to take Grandma Ferguson and Mrs. Lydia and Anna home, he suggested to the latter that she walk with him, as there was a moon and the night was fine. If there was anything Anna detested it was walking over a dusty dirt road in slippers, and she wore that day a dainty pair with heels so high that her ankles were in danger of turning over with every step. But slippers and dusty highways weighed as nothing against a walk with Major Rossiter down the winding hill, between hedges of sweet-brier and alder, and across the long causeway where the beeches and maples nearly met overhead, and the river wound like a silver thread through the green meadows to the westward. Such a walk would be very romantic, and Anna meant to take it if she spoiled a dozen pairs of slippers. So she acceded to the major’s proposition, and the two started together for home, while Phil looked curiously after them and said in an aside to Queenie: “The old chap is hard hit, and if I’m not mistaken, Anna will be my Lady Rossiter, and then won’t we second-class mortals catch it.” CHAPTER XXII. MARGERY AND THE PEOPLE.