He had often heard it rumoured that Sir Charles Lambert was thought to be the accepted son-in-law of Sir Oliver; but this he had always doubted from the very first moment of his introduction at Milverton; and he felt that Katharine could never have endured his attentions. By these, however, she could now be troubled no farther; for Sir Charles, being deeply mortified and ashamed of the frantic violence which he had committed at his last visit, had left his home suddenly for London, and was solacing himself, for the contemptuous affront which he had received from Sir Philip Arundel, in the congenial atmosphere of bear gardens and cock pits. Nor had he forgotten how roughly he was handled by George Juxon, whom he at once feared for his courage, and hated for his virtues. However, he was no longer a visiter at Milverton; his sisters, indeed, still rode over from the Grange occasionally to pass a day with Katharine, and twice Juxon was of the party at table. To most eyes he would have appeared the admirer rather of these ladies than of Mistress Katharine; for Old Beech rectory was only four miles from Bolton Grange: and though he seldom accepted the invitations of Sir Charles, yet he met them often in hunting or hawking parties, and was apparently a very great favourite with them both. Sophy and Jane Lambert were both pretty: the one, with the rosy cheeks of health and laughing blue eyes; the other, brown and freckled, with an arch look that seemed to detect those secrets which men, and women too, most anxiously conceal, with a provoking and unerring sagacity. These good-tempered and warm-hearted girls had been at first sadly afflicted about their brother’s conduct; but this last care concerning him was now six weeks old, and had been dismissed from their minds. He was, to their great contentment, now absent, and their tongues were again loosened to playfulness. As the party sat at dinner in Milverton Hall one day, about the middle of June, and as Juxon was carving a capon, that he might help Mistress Alice to a delicate wing,-- “Prithee, Master Juxon,” said Jane Lambert with a very roguish expression of the eye, “did you not hear our merry voices on Wednesday evening as we killed a buck under Walton coppice? and did you not see us lift our velvet caps to you? and did you shut your ears to the pleasant horn? or were you charmed to sleep by the fairies under that broad beech tree in the Bird Meadow? or were you saying your prayers? or were you reading Master Ford’s Lover’s Melancholy? or were you thinking of our Lady St. Katharine here at Milverton?” Juxon was so confused at this last question that he put the wing of the capon into the sauce boat instead of on the trencher of Mistress Alice, and said, with a stammer and a blush,-- “Really, Mistress Jane, you are too bad; but I know that you dearly love a joke upon anglers: you are always jeering poor Moxon.”