Mrs. Tempest's dinner-party was a success. It introduced Captain Winstanley to all that was best in the surrounding society; for although in Switzerland he had seemed very familiar with the best people in the Forest, in Hampshire he appeared almost a stranger to them. It was generally admitted, however, that the Captain was an acquisition, and a person to be cultivated. He sang a French comic song almost as well as Monsieur de Roseau, recited a short Yankee poem, which none of his audience had ever heard before, with telling force. He was at home upon every subject, from orchids to steam-ploughs, from ordnance to light literature. A man who sang so well, talked so well, looked so well, and behaved so well, could not be otherwise than welcome in county society. Before the evening was over, Captain Winstanley had been offered three hunters for the next day's run, and had been asked to write in four birthday-books. Violet did not honour him with so much as a look, after her one cold recognition of his first appearance in the drawing-room. It was a party of more than twenty people, and she was able to keep out of his way without obvious avoidance of him. He was stung, but had no right to be offended. He took Mrs. Scobel in to dinner, and Mrs. Scobel played the accompaniment of his song, being a clever little woman, able to turn her hand to any thing. He would have preferred to be told off to some more important matron, but was not sorry to be taken under Mrs. Scobel's wing. She could give him the carte du pays, and would be useful to him, no doubt, in the future; a social Iris, to fetch and carry for him between Beechdale and the Abbey House. "Do you know that I am quite in love with your Forest?" he said to Mrs. Tempest, standing in front of the ottoman where that lady sat with two of her particular friends; "so much so, that I am actually in treaty for Captain Hawbuck's cottage, and mean to stay here till the end of the hunting." Everybody knew Captain Hawbuck's cottage, a verandahed box of a house, on the slope of the hill above Beechdale. "I'm afraid you'll find the drawing-room chimney smokes," said a matter-of-fact lady in sea-green; "poor Mrs. Hawbuck was a martyr to that chimney." "What does a bachelor want with a drawing-room? If there is one sitting-room in which I can burn a good fire, I shall be satisfied. The stable is in very fair order." "The Hawbucks kept a pony-carriage," assented the sea-green lady. "If Mrs. Hawbuck accepts my offer, I shall send for my horses next week," said the Captain.