He could not offer a churlish reception to his visitors, who had journeyed far to sojourn with him. They were of the world, and expected to be entertained. Mr. St. John invited people to the Hall to meet them; and went out with them in return. In July the county families began to seek their homes after the whirl of the London season, bringing their guests with them, and gay parties were the rule of the hour. Archery, boating, lawn dances, dinners; never a day but something more agreeable to the rest succeeded to the other. Mr. Carleton was pressed to attend all, and did attend a great many. Can you wonder at it? Of great prospective wealth, heir-presumptive to a baronetcy, and withal an attractive man--the world knew how to estimate him. But the prize was not as great as it had been, since no other woman who might succeed in gaining him, or whom he might choose himself irrespective of any seeking on her own part, could reasonably hope to give birth to the heir that should succeed. That heir was already in the world--the little child whose advent had cost a precious life. It could not be said that Mr. St. John had very much right, especially now, to the name of Carleton. His name had been simply George St. John, until he married the rich heiress, Caroline Carleton: and with her property he had to assume her name, for her dead father had so enjoined it in his will. But for that expectant baronetage, he might have added the new name _after_ his own. As it was, he did not do so. The new name was rather a convenience: there were several branches of the St. John family, one of them far higher in the world's social scale than George St. John of Alnwick, or even his uncle the baronet; and people fell into the habit of calling him Mr. Carleton, as a distinction. The little child had also been christened Carleton. And so George Carleton St. John, yielding to the soothing hand of time, forgot in a degree her who had lain on his bosom and made the brief sunshine of his existence. He went out in the world again, and held gatherings of his own, and was altogether reinstated in social life. On a lovely day in September, Alnwick Hall was filled with guests. Chiefest of all the fêtes by which that autumn and the neighbourhood had been distinguished, was this last one held at the Hall. Mr. St. John had spared neither pains nor money to render it attractive: and he certainly succeeded. Brilliant groups were in the park, in the temporary marquee on the lawn, and in the house itself; a sort of _fête-champêtre_. Was it out of place, all that glittering gaiety, with the closing scene of only ten months before?--the young life so suddenly sacrificed? Perhaps so: but the idea did not once occur to George St. John. It was not likely to do so now, when _another_ was casting her spells upon his heart. I have told you that rumour had already whispered of a second mistress at Alnwick.