"Is she pleased that he is coming?" he said to his wife, the evening before the arrival of their guest. "Certainly she is pleased. She knows that we both like him." "I remember when she used to talk about him--often," said Sir Harry. "That was when she was a child." "But a year or two ago," said Sir Harry. "Three or four years, perhaps; and with her that is a long time. It is not likely that she should talk much of him now. Of course she knows what it is that we wish." "Does she think about her cousin at all?" he said some hours afterwards. "Yes, she thinks of him. That is only natural, you know." "It would be unnatural that she should think of him much." "I do not see that," said the mother, keen to defend her daughter from what might seem to be an implied reproach. "George Hotspur is a man who will make himself thought of wherever he goes. He is clever, and very amusing;--there is no denying that. And then he has the Hotspur look all over." "I wish he had never set his foot within the house," said the father. "My dear, there is no such danger as you think," said Lady Elizabeth. "Emily is not a girl prone to fall in love at a moment's notice because a man is good-looking and amusing;--and certainly not with the conviction which she must have that her doing so would greatly grieve you." Sir Harry believed in his daughter, and said no more; but he thoroughly wished that Lord Alfred's wedding-day was fixed. "Mamma," said Emily, on the following day, "won't Lord Alfred be very dull?" "I hope not, my dear." "What is he to do, with nobody else here to amuse him?" "The Crutchleys are coming on the 27th." Now Mr. and Mrs. Crutchley were, as Emily thought, very ordinary people, and quite unlikely to afford amusement to Lord Alfred. Mr. Crutchley was an old gentleman of county standing, and with property in the county, living in a large dull red house in Penrith, of whom Sir Harry thought a good deal, because he was a gentleman who happened to have had great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. But he was quite as old as Sir Harry, and Mrs. Crutchley was a great deal older than Lady Elizabeth. "What will Lord Alfred have to say to Mrs. Crutchley, mamma?" "What do people in society always have to say to each other? And the Lathebys are coming here to dine to-morrow, and will come again, I don't doubt, on the 27th." Mr. Latheby was the young Vicar of Humblethwaite, and Mrs. Latheby was a very pretty young bride whom he had just married. "And then Lord Alfred shoots," continued Lady Elizabeth. "Cousin George said that the shooting wasn't worth going after," said Emily, smiling. "Mamma, I fear it will be a failure." This made Lady Elizabeth unhappy, as she thought that more was meant than was really said. But she did not confide her fears to her husband. CHAPTER III. LORD ALFRED'S COURTSHIP.