No wonder Herbert enjoyed himself. He had come out of his chrysalis condition altogether, and was enjoying the butterfly existence to an extent which he had never conceived of, fluttering about everywhere, sunning his fine new wings, his new energies, his manhood, and his health, and his wealth, and all the glories that were his. To do him justice, he would have brought his household up to town, in order that Reine too might have had her glimpse of the season, could he have persuaded them; but Reine, just then at a critical point of her life, declined the indulgence. Kate and Sophy, however, were fond of saying that they had never enjoyed a season so much. Opera-boxes rained upon them; they never wanted bouquets; and their parties to Richmond, to Greenwich, wherever persons of her class go, were endless. Herbert was ready for anything, and their father did decline the advantages, though he disliked the giver of them; and even when he was disagreeable, matrons were always procurable to chaperone the party, and preside over their pleasures. Everybody believed, as Sophy did, that there could be but one conclusion to so close an intimacy. “At all events, we have had a very jolly season,” said Kate, who was not so sure. And Herbert fully echoed the words when he heard them. Yes, it had been a very jolly season. He had “spent his money free,” which in the highest class, as well as in the lowest, is the most appropriate way in which a young man can make himself agreeable. He had enjoyed himself, and he had given to others a great many opportunities of enjoying themselves. Now and then he carried down a great party to Whiteladies, and introduced the _beau monde_ to his beautiful old house, and made one of those fêtes champêtres for his friends which break so agreeably upon the toils of London pleasuring, and which supply to the highest class, always like the lowest in their peculiar rites, an elegant substitute for Cremorne and Rosherville. Miss Susan bestirred herself, and made a magnificent response to his appeals when he asked her to receive such parties, and consoled herself for the gay mob that disturbed the dignity of the old house, by the noble names of some of them, which she was too English not to be impressed by. And thus in a series of delights the Summer passed from May to August. Herbert did not go to Scotland, though he had many invitations and solicitations to do so when the season was over. He came home instead, and settled there when fashion melted away out of town; and Sophy, considering the subject, as she thought, impartially, and without any personal prejudice (she said), concluded that it must be for her sake he stayed. “I know the Duke of Ptarmigan asked him, and Tom Heath, and Billy Trotter,” she said to her sister. “Billy, they say, has the finest moors going. Why shouldn’t he have gone, unless he had some motive? He can’t have any shooting here till September. If it isn’t _that_, what do you suppose it can be!”