Beside the house-party, and a smart young Guardsman, there were three guests from the village: the Reverend Adrian Lumley, Frances his daughter and Lancelot his son. The Rector was a white-haired man of sixty, handsome, erect, and dignified. For years he had been an army chaplain in India, now he shepherded a country flock. He and Lord Gaythorne were old Harrovians, and had a good deal to say to one another; the Bishop and the Dowager Mrs. Blagdon, discussed a London Mission, and the M.F.H. a May fox. The dinner was excellent, and went off with great decorum, but it was prodigiously dull. There was a little talk of golf, of a local engagement, the prospects of grouse, a recent by-election, and a threatened bazaar. Mrs. Fenchurch glanced up and down the table with unconcealed pride. The guests were all the ‘best people,’ no small fry; the silver candelabra and cups were superb, the flowers exquisite, the ménu everything a ménu should be. Round about her, waited many silent and efficient servants, and there at the head of the table in gorgeous apparel, and blazing jewels, sat little Letty, her niece by marriage. This dazzling vision established the lady more firmly than ever in the belief in her own infallibility; for this position, and all her other mercies, Letty had to thank _her_; and she drank off a glass of champagne to her own good health. It struck young Lumley that the bride, for all her magnificence, did not appear to be in particularly radiant spirits--that from time to time she cast timid and deprecating glances towards the master of the house; her smiles were rare, and her face wore a curious blighted look, and had lost something of the round, fresh touch of happy youth. She talked, yet appeared afraid to utter a word; once he had intercepted a scowl that Mr. Blagdon had cast at the lower end of the table, and during a pause he had called out in a harsh, dominating voice: “I say, what a noise you are all making down there. What a jovial, merry party! I’m glad my wife is so amusin’.”