Produced by Al Haines THE ELDEST SON BY ARCHIBALD MARSHALL Author of "Exton Manor" NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1919 COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published September, 1911 To KATHLEEN CONTENTS CHAPTER I The Squire Is Infernally Worried II A Question of Matrimony III Exit Miss Bird IV The Dower-House V Lady George VI Blaythorn Rectory VII The Squire Puts His Foot Down VIII The Squire Feels Trouble Coming IX Dick Pays a Sunday Visit X The Meet at Apthorpe Common XI Dick Leaves Kencote and Makes a Discovery XII The House Party XIII The Hunt Ball XIV A Shoot XV The Guns and the Ladies XVI The Money Question XVII Sunday and Monday XVIII Mrs. Clinton Chooses a Governess XIX Mrs. Clinton In Jermyn Street XX Aunt Laura Intervenes XXI An Engagement XXII Dick Comes Home XXIII Humphrey Counts His Chickens XXIV Virginia Goes to Kencote XXV A Lawn Meet XXVI What Miss Phipp Saw XXVII The Run of the Season XXVIII Property XXIX Brothers XXX Miss Bird Hears All About It CHAPTER I THE SQUIRE IS INFERNALLY WORRIED "Nina," said the Squire, "I'm most infernally worried." He was sitting in his wife's morning-room, in a low chair by the fire. In front of him was a table set for tea for one--himself. There were buttered toast and dry toast and preserves, a massive silver teapot, milk jug, cream jug, and sugar basin, a breakfast cup of China tea, and two boiled eggs, one of which he was attacking, sitting forward in his chair with his legs bent. He had come in from hunting a few minutes before, at about six o'clock, and it was his habit thus to consume viands which most men of his age and bulk might have been afraid of, as likely to spoil their dinner. But he was an active man, in spite of his fifty-nine years and his tendency to put on flesh, and it would have taken more than a tea that was almost a meal to reduce his appetite for dinner at eight, after a day in the saddle and a lunch off sandwiches and a flask of sherry. When his tea was over he would indulge himself in half an hour's nap, with the _Times_ open at the leader page on his knee, and go up to dress, feeling every inch of him a sportsman and an English country gentleman.