Miss Baker lived in lodgings, and Bertram therefore went to an hotel. Had she been mistress of the largest house in Littlebath, he would hardly have ventured to propose himself as a guest. The "Plough," however, is a good inn, and he deposited himself there. The hunting season at Littlebath had commenced, and Bertram soon found that had he so wished he could with but little trouble have provided himself with a stud in the coffee-room of his hotel. He had intended to call on Miss Baker on the evening of his arrival; but he had not actually told her that he would do so: and though he walked down to the terrace in which she lived, his courage failed him when he got there, and he would not go in. "It may be that evening calls are not the thing at Littlebath," he said to himself; and so he walked back to his hotel. And on the following day he did not go before two o'clock. The consequence was, that poor Miss Baker and her niece were kept at home in a state of miserable suspense. To them his visit was quite as important as to himself; and by one of them, the elder namely, it was regarded with an anxiety quite as nervous. When he did call, he was received with all the hospitality due to an old friend. "Why had he not come to tea the night before? Tea had been kept for him till eleven o'clock. Why, at any rate, had he not come to breakfast? He had been much nicer in Jerusalem," Miss Baker said. Bertram answered hardly with the spirit which had marked all that he had said in that far-away land. "He had been afraid to disturb them so late; and had been unwilling to intrude so early." Miss Waddington looked up at him from the collar she was working, and began to ask herself whether she really did like him so much. "Of course you will dine with us," said Miss Baker. George said he would, but assured her that he had not intended to give so much trouble. Could this be the same man, thought Caroline, who had snubbed Mr. M'Gabbery, and had stood by laughing when she slipped into the water? All manner of questions were then asked and answered respecting their different journeys. Constantinople was described on one side, and the Tyrol; and on the other the perils of the ride to Jaffa, the discomforts of the Austrian boat to Alexandria, and the manners of the ladies from India with whom Miss Baker and her niece had travelled in their passage from Egypt to Marseilles. Then they said something about uncle George--not that Miss Baker so called him--and Bertram said that he had learnt that Miss Baker had been staying at Hadley. "Yes," said she; "when I am in town, I have always money matters to arrange with Mr. Bertram, or rather to have arranged by Mr. Pritchett; and I usually stay a day or two at Hadley. On this occasion I was there a week." George could not but think that up to the period of their meeting at Jerusalem, Miss Baker had been instructed to be silent about Hadley, but that she was now permitted to speak out openly.