Florence introduced Cecil to the elegant young Baronet, who seemed on very familiar terms with Mrs. Lobyer. He entreated the ladies to continue their walk, and strolled up and down the terrace with them. "I will go and look for Lobyer presently," he said. "I suppose I shall find him somewhere about the house or stable, as it is scarcely a hunting morning." "You will not find Mr. Lobyer till to-morrow," answered Flo; "he has gone to Manchester." "Again! What an extraordinary attachment he has for Manchester! I never cared much myself for the Cottonopolis; it seems to me London without the West-end." After this Sir Nugent made himself eminently agreeable. The butterfly of the nineteenth century must not be altogether a foolish butterfly; for the gentler sex, whose suffrages he courts, are very far in advance of the Belindas and Saccharissas of the past. Sir Nugent had been to every place that was worth a gentleman's visiting, and seen every thing worth seeing, and read almost every book worth reading. He was a proficient in all gentlemanly sports; at nine years of age he had "passed" as a swimmer at Eton, and at nineteen had been stroke-oar in one of the Oxford boats. He was as much at home deer-stalking and eagle-shooting in the Highlands as he was in the West-end clubs, and his only effeminacy consisted in the whiteness of his hands and the careful tastes of his costume. The two ladies and the baronet went into the house presently, and made their way to the drawing-room, where Sir Nugent was welcomed with universal cordiality. He had a cousin staying in the house, a fast young lady with out-of-door propensities,--a young lady who wore clump-soles to her boots, defied wet weather, and unblushingly consumed a whole grouse at the breakfast-table before the face of mankind. A young lady whose mother is a county heiress, and whose paternal ancestors have been drawn and quartered in the dark ages, may venture to take life after her own fashion. Sir Nugent stayed to luncheon, and Sir Nugent lingered in the great drawing-room all through the winter afternoon. In the twilight Florence asked her friend for a little Mendelssohn; and while Cecil played the tender music the baronet and Mrs. Lobyer stood in a bay-window near the piano, talking in hushed voices attuned to the pensive melody. There were a good many people in the room; but it was a dangerously spacious apartment, in which conversation was apt to degenerate into _tête-à-tête_. When lamps were brought, the party of ladies, with Sir Nugent and two or three other gentlemen amongst them, adjourned to the morning-room to take tea; and still the Baronet lingered, assisting in the dispensing of the cups and making himself eminently useful to Mrs. Lobyer.