“He would undoubtedly be better off,” she said; “but then, Lady Lufton, people can’t always go exactly where they will be best off. Gentlemen sometimes must----” “Well--well, my dear, that will do. He has not taken you, at any rate; and so we will forgive him.” And Lady Lufton kissed her. “As it is,”--and she affected a low whisper between the two young wives--“as it is, we must e’en put up with poor old Evan Jones. He is to be here to-night, and we must go and dress to receive him.” And so they went off. Lady Lufton was quite good enough at heart to like Mrs. Robarts all the better for standing up for her absent lord. CHAPTER III. CHALDICOTES. Chaldicotes is a house of much more pretension than Framley Court. Indeed, if one looks at the ancient marks about it, rather than at those of the present day, it is a place of very considerable pretension. There is an old forest, not altogether belonging to the property, but attached to it, called the Chase of Chaldicotes. A portion of this forest comes up close behind the mansion, and of itself gives a character and celebrity to the place. The Chase of Chaldicotes--the greater part of it, at least--is, as all the world knows, Crown property, and now, in these utilitarian days, is to be disforested. In former times it was a great forest, stretching half across the country, almost as far as Silverbridge; and there are bits of it, here and there, still to be seen at intervals throughout the whole distance; but the larger remaining portion, consisting of aged hollow oaks, centuries old, and wide-spreading withered beeches, stands in the two parishes of Chaldicotes and Uffley. People still come from afar to see the oaks of Chaldicotes, and to hear their feet rustle among the thick autumn leaves. But they will soon come no longer. The giants of past ages are to give way to wheat and turnips; a ruthless Chancellor of the Exchequer, disregarding old associations and rural beauty, requires money returns from the lands; and the Chase of Chaldicotes is to vanish from the earth’s surface.