"Yes, I will find out," said Beatrice, quietly; "give me the note, I will keep it back for the present." "Now, for goodness sake, go on, child, and don't waste any more time. Who are coming from town to stay in the house?" "Well, there will be Lady Kynaston, I suppose." "Yes. She won't come till the end of the week. I have heard from her; she will try and get down in time for the ball." "Then there will be the Macpherson girls and Helen Romer. And, as a matter of course, Captain Kynaston must be asked?" "Yes. What a fool that woman is to advertise her feelings so openly that one is obliged to ask her attendant swain to follow her wherever she goes!" "On the contrary, I think her remarkably clever; she gets what she wants, and the cleverest of us can do no more. It is a well-known fact to all Helen's acquaintances that not to ask Captain Kynaston to meet her would be deliberately to insult her--she expects it as her right." "All the same, it is in very bad taste and excessively underbred of her. However, I should ask Captain Kynaston in any case, for his mother's sake, and because I like him. He is a good shot, too, and the coverts must be shot that week. Who next?" "Mr. Herbert Pryme." "Goodness me! Beatrice, what makes you think of _him_? We don't know anything about him--where he comes from or who are his belongings--he is only a nobody!" "He is a barrister, mamma!" "Yes, of course, I know that--but, then, there are barristers of all sorts. I am sure I do not know what made you fix upon him; you only met him two or three times in town." "I liked him," said Beatrice, carelessly; "he is a gentleman, and would be a pleasant man to have in the house." Her mother looked at her sharply. She was playing with the gold locket round her neck, twisting it backwards and forwards along its chain, her eyes fixed upon the heap of cards on her lap. There was not the faintest vestige of a blush upon her face. "However," she continued, "if you don't care about having him, strike his name out. Only it is a pity, because Sophy Macpherson is rather fond of him, I fancy." This was a lie; it was Miss Beatrice herself who was fond of him, but not even her mother, keen and quick-scented as she was, could have guessed it from her impassive face. Mrs. Miller was taken in completely. "Oh," she said, "if Sophy Macpherson likes him, that alters the case. Oh, yes, I will ask him by all means--as you say, he is a gentleman and pleasant." "Look, mamma!" exclaimed Beatrice, suddenly; "there is uncle Tom riding up the drive." Now, Tom Esterworth was a very important personage; he was the present head of the Esterworth family, and, as such, the representative of its ancient honours and traditions. He was a bachelor, and reigned in solitary grandeur at Lutterton Castle, and kept the hounds as his fathers had done before him.