"Well, as Anthony insists upon drawing his sword and holding us all at arm's length, I wish the fact that half a hundred women are coming to trample down my turf were deceptive. What a difference there would have been a year ago!" added Mr Robert, with a sigh of regret. "That boy would hare been up here twenty times a day, planning and contriving, and worrying us out of our senses. It is not right of him, Charles, whatever you may say; it's not right for the poor girl." "Will you be so good as to close that window, Robert?" said his brother, shivering. "When your guests come I shall be doubled up with rheumatism. To drag me into society is really an act of cruelty, for I am quite unfit for it, and as useless as a log." Mr Robert stopped his march, and looked at his brother with a comically grave expression of sympathy. The same little comedy was acted again and again, Mr Mannering protesting against the society in which he delighted, and a victim to aches and pains until the guests arrived, when he became the perfect host, only occasionally indulging himself with an allusion to his sufferings, and full of the social presence of mind invaluable under the circumstances. Ada had been as much offended at Anthony's desertion as it was possible for one of her nature to be, but it could not seriously ruffle her temper. All her life had been spent in a kindly appreciative atmosphere, and a certain placid self-satisfaction seems irrepressibly to radiate from such lives. No doubts were likely to trouble her. She was too serenely comfortable to be conscious of the little stings and darts which torment some people every day. She was haunted by no sense of short-coming. There looked out at her from the glass a pretty smiling face, her uncle and aunt petted her, the days were full of easy enjoyment,--all of us have been sometimes puzzled with these lives, which irritate us at the very moment of our half-envy of a placidity which seems so far beyond our reach. And now, although Anthony's absence caused her a prick of mortification, she had no intention of resigning, in consequence, any of the honours which the occasion might bring to her feet, nor even the attendance of an admirer, for she had persuaded good-natured Mrs Bennett--always readily moved to anything in the shape of a kindness, and especially of one which affected the bodily comfort of her acquaintances--to offer a seat in the carriage to Mr Warren, a young would-be lawyer who was working under Mr Bennett, and who would otherwise have had to tramp out along the dusty road, instead of, as now, appearing in the freshest of attire, ready to be Ada's very obedient servant, and not at all ill-pleased to stand, if only for a day, in what should have been Anthony's place.