The fat gentleman stands aside and the squire does not see him. He is a handsome, happy-looking fellow, this squire, and there is a lady with him whose cheeks glow with health and whose bright eyes are full of life. ‘Oh, George’!’ says the lady, ‘I’m sure you’ll drive over somebody some day. My dear Gertie, if you could have seen us come down the lane you’d have thought we were mad. Ah, Ruth, how’s your mamma to-day?’ The quiet lady had come down the little garden path to the carriage, and the lips of the women meet in a sisterly kiss. ‘I want you to come back to the Hall with us if you can leave your mamma for an hour,’ says the gentleman called George. ‘Bess has been up to her mad tricks again, and what do you think she’s done?’ Ruth smiles, ‘I’m sure I can’t guess.’ ‘Why, she’s invited the whole of the Jarvises down, caravan and all, and, if you please, they are to perform for our special benefit an entirely new drama, written by Mr. Shakespeare Jarvis.’ ‘Oh, Ruth, you will come, won’t you?’ says Bess, clapping her hands, for Bess Heritage it is. ‘I want only our old friends. You and Gertie must come—do!’ Ruth laughs and nods her head. ‘That’s right; and now, Ruth, I’ll come in and have a quiet chat with you, while George talks nonsense to Gertie.’ Gertie laughed and shook her head, but she stayed by the pony-carriage, for she knew that the two women wanted to talk about the past and about her, and Gertie didn’t care to hear her own praises sounded. George was patting his pony and telling Gertie about a new pair he had bought for Ruth to drive herself, when the stout gentleman approached nervously, and, giving a little cough, attracted the squire’s attention. ‘I beg pardon, Squire Heritage,’ he said. George turned in a moment. He had reason to remember the voice. ‘Why, Duck,’ he exclaimed, ‘what the dickens are you doing here?’ ‘Ahem—Squire; to tell you the truth I’m come to see you.’ ‘See me!’ ‘Yes. I’m afraid our connection wasn’t very pleasant, but—ahem—let bygones be bygones—and I thought perhaps you wouldn’t mind—ahem—taking my card, and if you want anything done in my line——’ George took the proffered card. It announced that Mr. Jabez Duck had embarked in business on his own account as a private inquiry agent. George stared at the card, wondering which to do—to admire the man’s cool impudence or to kick him. ‘You see, sir,’ said Mr. Duck, giving his shiny head another mop, ‘things are altered with me now. When I had the misfortune to have to do business with you I had an encumbrance, sir, and I couldn’t afford to go about as an inquiry agent on his own account ought to. Mrs. Duck wouldn’t hear of it. But now, sir, Mrs. Duck is no more, and I’m going to try business on my own hook altogether.’ ‘Oh, Mrs. Duck’s dead, is she?’ said George, for the sake of saying something.