"Oh dear me, yes; he is very well," Flo answered, with supreme indifference. "I have not seen him for the last day or two. I suppose he is at Manchester. He is subject to periodical disappearances, and when he disappears people tell me he is at Manchester. It's very likely he will reappear at dinner-time; he generally does reappear at dinner-time; and whether he has been out on the terrace to smoke a cigar, or a week away at Manchester, his manner is pretty much the same. I have heard people say that Mr. Lobyer is not gentlemanly; but I am sure that if it is correct not to admire any thing, and not to be surprised at any thing, and not to care about any thing,--except the rise and fall of that horrible, unsteady money-market, which fluctuates to such a degree that it makes me dizzy to think of it,--Mr. Lobyer is the prince of gentlemen." "You talk of things as lightly as ever, Flo," Cecil said, wonderingly. "Heaven help me when I begin to talk of things seriously!" answered Mrs. Lobyer, more earnestly than she was wont to speak. "And now, darling, I must run away. You have only half an hour between this and eight o'clock, and I want you to look your best, in order to astonish my Yorkshire grandees, who go to London once in ten years, and who, in the interim, fondly believe that the civilised world comes to an end somewhere beyond the city of York." The Pevenshall dining-room, enriched by that splendid tribute which modern painters and modern sculptors offer to the golden calf of Manchester, was a very superb apartment. The Pevenshall drawing-room would not have shown meanly when contrasted with one of the saloons of Windsor; and in the drawing-room, leaning in a meditative attitude against one of the low mantelpieces, and worrying a Skye terrier with the toe of his boot, Cecil found Mr. Lobyer, who gave her a gentlemanly, but by no means rapturous, welcome to Pevenshall. "I hope my wife will make you comfortable, Lady Cecil," he said. "I'm sure she ought to do so, for she's been talking enough about you for the last fortnight, whether you would come, or whether you wouldn't come, and so on."