He settled this in his own mind as he was dressing for dinner about a week after the winter picnic. Settled it not without long deliberation and a little sleep, for he began to give the matter his careful consideration after returning from a long day's shooting; and it was not until he had steamed and lathered himself in a warm bath, had pulled the little sofa in front of the fire, and was contemplating his evening clothes neatly arranged on an adjacent chair, that he began to consider the question. His deliberation involved the putting up of his feet on the sofa, and that proceeding caused him at once to drop helplessly off to sleep, only to be roused by the loud clanging of the second dinner-bell. An addition accrued to the dinner-party that day, in the persons of Sir Thomas Hayter, a country neighbour, his wife and daughter. Sir Thomas was a hearty old Tory country squire, who during his one season in London had been captivated by and had married her ladyship; at the time of her marriage a _passée_ beauty, now a thin chip of an old woman, still affecting girlish airs. Miss Hayter was a fine, fresh, dashing, exuberant girl, inclined to flirting, and fulfilling her inclination thoroughly. They infused a little new life into the party; for though Sir Thomas did not talk a great deal, he listened to everything that was said, and threw in an occasional "Ha! dear me!" with great vigour and effect, while Lady Hayter chirped away to Sir Charles Mitford, asking him about all sorts of London people of whom he had never heard, and quite bewildering him with her volubility. She succeeded better with Mr. Hammond, whose health was fast improving in the soft Devon air, and who, in spite of the strongly-expressed opinion of his wife, had come down to dinner that day. He was seated next to Lady Hayter; and shortly after dinner commenced, he found out that he had known her before her marriage, when she was Miss Fitzgibbon; "used to have the pleasure of meeting you at the Silvesters' in South Audley Street;" and then they entered upon a very long conversation about the acquaintances of their youth, while all the time each was stealing covert glances at the other, and wondering how it was possible--she, that that cadaverous, parchment-faced, bent invalid could be the handsome boy who in those days had just come up from Haileybury, and was going to India with such good prospects; he, that the old woman with the palpably-dyed purple hair, the scraggy neck, and the resplendent teeth--the gold springs of which were so very visible--could have been Emily Fitzgibbon, about whose beauty every one was raving in '25. Miss Hayter too was very happy; she was immensely taken by Laurence Alsager, next to whom she was seated. She had heard of him often; and two years before, when she was in London, he had been pointed out to her at the Opera; and she, then a young lady of seventeen, had gone home and written about him in her diary,