'Don't do that, or you will offend him for ever,' said Eleanor. 'He is the kindest, best-hearted man in the world--a little rough, perhaps, but a thorough gentleman in every thought.' 'You have not yet learned the extent of my company,' said May, looking maliciously at her friend. 'I have a great idea that perhaps the _fiasco_ which Mrs. Chadwick so deplored last season was caused by her own mismanagement; so that in order that she may have another chance of carrying out that project upon which her heart was at one time set, and that I may give her the benefit of my assistance, I have invited Mr. Pratt to stay down here at the same time--and, what is more, he is coming.' 'How can you be so ridiculous!' said Eleanor. 'You know you have done nothing of the kind!' 'Most certainly, and in all seriousness, I have, dear; not, of course, with any such idea as I have just suggested, but simply because he is a pleasant little man, whose admiration for you has now toned down into a sincere and genuine regard, and for whom I myself have a real liking. I wonder,' she said suddenly, after a pause--'I wonder whether Sir Nugent Uffington would care to come here for a few days?' Eleanor looked quickly round at her, but seemed reassured by the calm, though earnest, expression on her friend's face. 'It is impossible to say,' she said; 'but I think he would like it very much. He seemed on the only occasion on which I saw them together to be impressed by Mr. Chadwick's honest common sense; and Fanny now thinks there is nobody like him.' 'That ought to be my opinion,' said May quietly; 'for though the subject has never been mentioned between us, I am certain that I owe all the good which has lately happened to me to Sir Nugent Uffington's interposition with my husband.' 'You think it?' said Eleanor. 'I am sure of it,' replied May; 'though how it was brought about I have not the least idea. Sir Nugent has a strangely determined manner with him, and when he first became interested about me he bade me not to cease hoping for better days. Even then, when everything was at its worst and blackest, I derived some kind of comfort from his words, and I feel now that I am indebted to him for what has been my restoration to life.' Again Eleanor looked keenly at her friend, and was again satisfied at May's appearance. 'It is strange that a man like that,' said May, 'should never have married; so far as one can judge, he has all the qualifications for making a woman happy.' 'There is, is there not,' said Eleanor, 'some story about him, some romantic adventure of his youth, which soured his disposition and brought on him that cynicism which men are always talking of but which I in vain have tried to discover?' 'He is not, I imagine, so cynical or so hard as he was,' said May. 'Mr. Eardley, who came to see me once or twice, told me he had never seen a man so much changed, and wondered to what influence the alteration could be ascribed.'