Mrs. Alwynn, a little nettled, explained that of course she went, that it was her _own_ school-feast, that Mrs. Thursby, at the Hall, had nothing to do with it. (Dare did not know who Mrs. Thursby was, but he listened with great attention.) She, Mrs. Alwynn, gave it herself. Her own cook, who had been with her five years, made the cakes, and her own donkey-cart conveyed the same to the field where the repast was held. "Miss Deyncourt, will she be there?" asked Dare. Mrs. Alwynn explained that all the neighborhood, including the Thursbys, would be there; that she made a point of asking the Thursbys. "I also will come," said Dare, gravely. CHAPTER III. Atherstone was a rambling, old-fashioned, black-and-white house, half covered with ivy, standing in a rambling, old-fashioned garden--a charming garden, with clipped yews, and grass paths, and straggling flowers and herbs growing up in unexpected places. In front of the house, facing the drawing-room windows, was a bowling-green, across which, at this time of the afternoon, the house had laid a cool green shadow. Two ladies were sitting under its shelter, each with her work. It was hot still, but the shadows were deepening and lengthening. Away in the sun hay was being made and carried, with crackings of whips and distant voices. Beyond the hay-fields lay the silver band of the river, and beyond again the spire of Slumberleigh Church, and a glimpse among the trees of Slumberleigh Hall. "Ralph has started in the dog-cart to meet Charles. They ought to be here in half an hour, if the train is punctual," said Mrs. Ralph. She was a graceful woman, with a placid, gentle face. She might be thirty, but she looked younger. With her pleasant home and her pleasant husband, and her child to be mildly anxious about, she might well look young. She looked particularly so now as she sat in her fresh cotton draperies, winding wool with cool, white hands. The handiwork of some women has a hard, masculine look. If they sew, it is with thick cotton in some coarse material; if they knit, it is with cricket-balls of wool, which they manipulate into wiry stockings and comforters. Evelyn's wools, on the contrary, were always soft, fleecy, liable to weak-minded tangles, and so turning, after long periods of time, into little feminine futilities for which it was difficult to divine any possible use.