‘Laura might give a dance at Christmas, and then we might beat up for young men,’ answered John. ‘I’m afraid as long as we confine ourselves to dinner parties, we shall not be able to do much for you, my poor Celia.’ ‘But are you not going to have people to stay in the house when the pheasant shooting begins?’ inquired Celia, with uplifted eyebrows. ‘Are not your old friends going to rally round you? I thought they always did when a man came into a fortune.’ ‘I believe that is one of the characteristics of friendship,’ said John. ‘But I lost sight of my old friends--the friends of my soldiering days, that is to say--nearly seven years ago, and I don’t care about digging them out.’ ‘I wonder they don’t come to the surface of their own accord,’ said Celia. ‘And how about the friends you have made since you sold out? You can’t have existed seven years without society.’ ‘I have existed quite as long as that without what you would call society.’ ‘Ah, I see,’ assented Celia; ‘the people you have known are not people you would care to bring here, or to introduce to your wife.’ ‘Precisely.’ ‘Poor Laura!’ thought Celia, and then there followed a pause, brief but uncomfortable. ‘Shall I write the list of invitations?’ asked Laura, who was sitting at her davenport. They were in the book-room, the fresh autumnal air blowing in across beds and borders filled with September’s gaudy flowers. ‘Yes, dear, beginning, of course, with Sir Joshua and Lady Parker, and descending gradually in the social scale to----’ ‘My father and mother,’ interrupted Celia, ‘if you mean to ask them. I’m sure you can’t go lower than the parson of the parish; for he’s generally the poorest man in it.’ ‘And often the most beloved,’ said John Treverton. ‘Do you think I should give my first dinner party without inviting your father and mother, Celia?’ asked Laura, reproachfully. ‘They will be my most honoured guests.’ ‘Heaven knows how the mater is to get a new gown,’ ejaculated Celia; ‘but I’m sure she can’t come in the old one. That gray satin of hers has been to so many dinner parties that I should think it could go by itself, and would know how to behave, without having poor mother inside it. How well all the servants hereabouts must know the back of that dress, and the dark patch on the shoulder, where Lady Barker’s butler spilt some lobster sauce. It is like the blood-stain on Lady Macbeth’s hand. All the benzine in the world won’t take it out. Oh, by-the-bye,’ pursued Celia, rattling on breathlessly, ‘if you really don’t mind being overrun with the Clare family, would you write a card for Ted?’ ‘With pleasure,’ said Laura; ‘but is he not in London?’ ‘At this present moment he is; but we are expecting him daily at the Vicarage. The fact is he has not made his mark, poor fellow, and he is rather tired of London. I suppose there are too many young men there, all wanting to make their mark.’ CHAPTER XXII. A VILLAGE IAGO.