No Princess Royal could have been more certain of her superior place than Patty on this supreme occasion, when, flying from the hateful aristocrats, who would not call upon her, she had intended to throw herself back again into the bosom of her own class. And Miss Hewitt looked a Grand Duchess at the least, and showed a benign interest in the villagers which no reigning lady could have surpassed. “Seven? have you really? and such fine children; and is this the youngest?” she said, pausing before a family group; to the awe of the parents, who had known old Patience Hewitt all their lives, and knew that she knew every detail of their little history; but this will show with what gusto and fine histrionic power she was able, though really almost an old woman, to take up and play her part. But had it not been the ideal and hope of her life? There was, however, one person at the Greyshott fête whom it was difficult to identify with the heroes of the village. When Patty saw approaching her across the greensward a well-knit manly figure in irreproachable flannels, with a striped cap of red and white on his head, a tie of the same colour, a fine white flannel shirt encircling with its spotless folded-down collar a throat burnt to a brilliant red-brown by the sun, her heart gave a jump with the sudden conviction that “a gentleman” had come, even though uninvited, to see her in her glory. It gave another jump, however, still more excited and tremulous, when this figure turned out to be Roger Pearson--not a gentleman indeed, but a famous personage all over England, the pride of the county, whose rise in the world was now fully known to her. She had seen him before, indeed, in this costume, but only in the dusk, when it was not so clearly apparent. How well it became him, and what a fine fellow he looked! handsome, free, independent, as different from all his rustic friends as Patty was from her old school-fellows in their cotton dresses, but in how different a way; for Roger, it was well known, was hand-and-glove with many of the greatest people of England, and yet quite at home in the village eleven which he had come to lead in the match which was one of the features of the day. Patty, though she was the lady of Greyshott, could not but feel a pang of delight and pride when he walked by her side through the crowd. He was the only one whom she could not patronise. She thought furtively that any one who saw them would think he was the young squire; that was what he looked like--the master, as she was the lady. He had no need to put on those airs which Patty assumed. Nobody disputed his superiority, or even looked as if they felt themselves as good as him. And it seemed to be natural, as the afternoon went on, that he should find himself again and again by Patty’s side, sometimes suggesting something new, sometimes offering his services to carry out her plans, sometimes begging that she would rest and not wear herself out.