This morning, just before lunch, Fifine and I were dozing on the lawn under the big Japanese umbrella, when James came to tell me that Captain Bennett was in the drawing-room. Of course he came to return my handkerchief--it was very polite of him to bring it himself, especially as he rode all the way from Taunton in a blazing sun, along a road lying under nearly a foot of dust. Naturally, I could not let him go back without lunch, and afterwards, when I thought he would go, he asked me to let him look over my songs, as he wanted something to sing at a smoker to-night, which the Yeomanry are giving for him and the Earl of Mortimer. He tried nearly all, and tea was brought in before he got one to suit his voice, which is really a very good one. He is a very gentlemanly man, and has a shy way of looking at one, that is quite naïve in a soldier. He wouldn't believe me when I told him I had a daughter seventeen, until I showed him your photograph. He seemed so astonished that I was obliged to tax him with being extremely ungallant. I asked him if he expected a woman to be old at thirty-five because she happened to marry at seventeen, and he gave me such a look that I felt quite uncomfortable. His eyes were not at all shy, but looked like sparks of blue fire. Just then there was the sound of a carriage driving up, and Mrs. Chevington and the Blaine girls rushed into the room. Fell in would be more correct, for so few Englishwomen know how to enter a room quickly and gracefully. They didn't know Captain Bennett, and as I thought I had had enough of him for one day, I wouldn't introduce him. He has a horrid way of shaking hands, and left the print of my opal ring on my middle finger. I told him to keep the songs as long as he wished, but he is so awfully polite he said he would return them to-morrow. When he had gone, Daisy Blaine asked me if I had heard that he said in the Taunton Club he intended to marry money, which I thought very spiteful of her. Mrs. Chevington was greatly agitated by the report that an American family have taken Astley Court. She said that everybody is asking Lady Beatrice Carterville if she is going to call on them. I believe, if Lady Beatrice should marry Mr. Frame, Mrs. Chevington would find an excuse for her. Whenever she passes the lions at Braxome Lodge, Mrs. Chevington is pervaded with the most sacred emotions--she has admitted as much to me. There are some people to whom blue blood is more intoxicating than champagne, and who look on a pedigree as a reservoir which you can never exhaust. The odd part of it is, that Mrs. Chevington is not a snob, she is merely common or garden respectable. {_The Ghost_}