"Truly it must!" broke in Mrs. Dobbs, thinking at once sympathetically of the wife and mother threatened with so cruel a bereavement, and now almost suddenly relieved from overwhelming anxiety. "I'm sure most folks in Oldchester have been feeling greatly for Mrs. Bransby." "And so," continued Theodore, addressing himself exclusively to May, "she has not really been--been able to see as much of you as she would have liked, Miss Cheffington." May looked at him in surprise. "Why of course?" said she. "Mrs. Bransby hasn't been thinking about _me_! How should she?" "That is the reason--I mean my father's illness, and all the occupations resulting from it--which has induced Mrs. Bransby to make me her ambassador on this occasion." As he spoke, Theodore took a little note from his pocket-book, and handed it to May. She glanced at it, and exclaimed with open astonishment, "It's an invitation to dinner! Look, granny!" Mr. Weatherhead poked forward his head to see. It was, in fact, a formal card requesting the pleasure of Miss Cheffington's company at dinner on the following Saturday. Mrs. Dobbs once more put on her spectacles and read the card. "I hope you will be disengaged," said Theodore, severely ignoring "granny." "Oh, I couldn't go to a grand dinner-party. It would be ridiculous!" "May! That's not a gracious fashion of receiving an invitation, anyhow," said Mrs. Dobbs, smiling a little. "It's very kind indeed of Mr. and Mrs. Bransby, but I would much rather not, please," said May, endeavouring to amend her phrase. "Oh, that's dreadfully cruel, Miss Cheffington!" "You don't think I ought to go, do you, granny?" "That," replied Mrs. Dobbs, "depends on circumstances." "I assure you," said Theodore, turning round with his most imposing air, "that it would be quite proper for Miss Cheffington to accept the invitation. I should certainly not urge her to do so unless that were the case." Jo Weatherhead's suspicions as to this young spark's tendency to impertinence were rather vividly revived by this speech, and his forehead flushed as dark a red as his nose. But Mrs. Dobbs, looking at Theodore's fair young face made up into an expression of solemn importance, smiled a broad smile of motherly toleration, and answered in a soothing tone-- "No, no; to be sure, you mean to do what's right and proper; only young folks don't look at everything as has to be considered. But youth has the best of it in so many ways, it can afford to be not quite so wise as its elders." This glimpse of himself, as Mrs. Dobbs saw him, was so totally unexpected as completely to dumfounder Theodore for a moment. Never, since he left off round jackets, had he been so addressed: for the behaviour of our acquaintances towards us in daily life is generally modified by their idea of what we think of ourselves. "I--I can assure you," he stammered; and then stopped, at a loss for words, in most unaccustomed embarrassment.