“Merrenden, as you know, is the best judge of shooting in England,” Lady Katherine went on, in an injured voice. “Sophia is hardly likely to recommend his nephew so highly if he were not pretty good.” “But you don’t know the puppy, Katherine.” My heart fell. “That is not the least consequence--we are almost related. Merrenden is my first cousin, you forget that, I suppose!” Fortunately I could detect that Lady Katherine was becoming obstinate and offended. I drank some more coffee. Oh! how lovely if Lord Robert comes! Mr. Montgomerie “Bur-r-r-ed” a lot first, but Lady Katherine got him round, and before breakfast was over, it was decided she should write to Lord Robert, and ask him to come to the shoot. As we were all standing looking out of the window at the dripping rain, I heard her say in a low voice, “Really, Anderson, we must think of the girls sometimes. Torquilstone is a confirmed bachelor and a cripple--Lord Robert will certainly one day be Duke.” “Well, catch him if you can,” said Mr. Montgomerie. He is coarse sometimes! I am not going to let myself think much about Lord Robert--Mr. Carruthers has been a lesson to me--but if he does come--I wonder if Lady Katherine will think it funny of me not saying I knew him when she first spoke of him. It is too late now, so it can’t be helped. The Mackintosh party arrived this afternoon. Marriage must have quite different effects on some people. Numbers of the married women we saw in London were lovely, prettier, I always heard, than they had been before--but Mary Mackintosh is perfectly awful. She can’t be more than twenty-seven, but she looks forty, at least; and stout, and sticking out all in the wrong places, and flat where the stick-outs ought to be. And the four children! The two eldest look much the same age, the next a little smaller, and there is a baby, and they all squall, and although they seem to have heaps of nurses, poor Mr. Mackintosh has to be a kind of under one. He fetches and carries for them, and gives his handkerchief when they slobber--but perhaps it is he feels proud that a person of his size had these four enormous babies almost all at once like that. The whole thing is simply dreadful. Tea was a pandemonium! The four aunts gushing over the infants, and feeding them with cake, and gurgling with “Tootsie-wootsie-popsy-wopsy” kind of noises. They will get to do “Bur-r-r-rs” I am sure, when they grow older. I wonder if the infants will come down every afternoon when the shoot happens. The guests will enjoy it! I said to Jean as we came upstairs that I thought it seemed terrible to get married--did not she? But she was shocked, and said no, marriage and motherhood were sacred duties, and she envied her sister! This kind of thing is not my idea of bliss. Two really well-behaved children would be delicious, I think; but four squalling imps all about the same age is _bourgeois_, and not the affair of a lady.