"What about?" "He said you would come because of the number of the birds. I--I--felt sure you would be engaged." "Your note was not cordial nor cousinly, and I was engaged, but the attraction of the game, as Mr. Gurrage says, decided me." His smile had never looked so mocking nor his eyes so kind. "Might I trouble you for a second cup, please, Mrs. Gussie?" the female Dodd interrupted, loudly, from half across the room, "Mr. McCormack is taking it over to you. And a little stronger this time, please. I don't care for this new-fangled taste for weak tea--dish-water, I call it--only fit for the jaded digestions of worn-out worldly women." "Who owns this fog-horn?" my kinsman whispered. "Will it come out shooting to-morrow? The game-book record will be considerably lower if so!" "It won't shoot; it will only lunch," I whispered back. Somehow, my spirits had risen. I loved to sit and laugh there with--Antony. (I think of him as Antony, now we are cousins, I must remember.) I poured out the blackest tea I could, and inadvertently put a lump of sugar into it. I am afraid I was not attending. Mr. McCormack, a big, burly youth, with a red face and fearfully nervous manners, stood first on one foot, then on the other, while he waited for the cup, which, eventually, he took back to Mrs. Dodd. All this time Antony was sitting talking to me in his delightfully lazy way, quite undisturbed by any one else in the room. He has exactly grandmamma's manner of finding a general company simply furniture. He was just telling an amusing story of the house in Scotland he had come from, when an explosion happened at the other side of the fireplace. Loud coughing and choking, mixed with a clatter of teaspoons and china--and, amid a terrified silence, the fog-horn exclaimed: "Surely, Mrs. Gussie, I told you plain enough that sugar in my tea makes me sick." I apologized as well as I could, and repaired my want of attention, and then I felt my other guests must claim me, so I whispered to Antony: "Do go and talk to Lady Wakely, please. You are preventing me from doing my duty! I am listening to you instead." "Virtuous Comtesse!" But he rose, and crossed over to the fat wife of the member for this division, and soon her face beamed with smiles. I soothed Mr. McCormack, who somehow felt the sugar had been his fault. Augustus mollified the fog-horn Dodd, and peace was restored all around. It is a long time between tea and dinner when the days are growing short. It was only half-past six when every excuse for lingering over the teacups had expired. What on earth could one do with this ill-assorted company for a whole hour? Augustus, with a desire to be extremely smart, had commanded dinner at half-past eight. Mercifully, the decent people and some of the men played bridge, and were soon engaged at one or two tables. Augustus, who is growing fond of the game, made one of the fourth, thus leaving five of our guests hanging upon my hands.