nobody, or rather had nobody to speak to, which is a better statement of the case. With one large exception, however, so long as the trial lasted, when lawyers and lawyers’ clerks had constant missions to Greyshott, and the distinguished barrister who won her cause for her, came over on a few days’ visit. That visit was, in fact, though it was the greatest triumph and glory to Patty, one of the most terrible ordeals she had to go through. He was a most amusing visitor, with endless stories to tell and compliments to pay, and would have made almost any party, in any country house which had the good fortune to receive him, “go off,” by his own unaided exertions. But it is to be doubted if this brilliant orator and special pleader had ever in his life formed the whole of a country-house party, with a little, smart, under-bred person and a village spinster for his sole hosts. He was appalled, it must be allowed, and felt that a curious new light was thrown upon the story which he made into a romance of real life; but all the same, it need not be said, this gentleman exerted himself to make the three days “go off” as if the house had been full, and the Prime Minister among the guests. But to describe what this was to Patty would require something more than the modest store of words I have at my disposal. She was not so ignorant as Miss Hewitt, who enjoyed the good the gods had provided for her without _arrière pensée_, and began to laugh before the delighted guest had opened his lips. Patty knew that there should be people invited “to meet” a man so well known. She knew that there ought to have been a party in the house, or, at least, distinguished company to dinner. And she had nobody, not even the rector! She did her best to invent reasons why So-and-so and So-and-so could not come, and made free use of the name of Lord Hartmore, who, she thought, with the instinct of her kind, had been made to give her up by his wife. She even made use of the fact that most people in the county were displeased with her on account of the trial, and because they wished the Pierceys to be still at Greyshott. “And so they are, in the person of much the most attractive member of the family,” the great man said, who would have been still more amused by his position between these two ladies if he had not been in his own person something of a black sheep, and a little on the alert to see himself avoided and neglected. Patty was not aware that he would not have ventured to pay these compliments to another kind of hostess; but she suffered intently from the fact that she had nobody to invite to meet him, nobody who would come to her even for a night, to keep her guest in countenance. She demeaned herself so far as to write to the rector begging of him to come. But the rector had another engagement and would not, or could not, consent. Poor Patty! She suffered in many ways from being thus, as it were, out of the bonds of all human society, but