Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/251

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CONDUCTED BY ""
 * No. 11..
 * SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1869.
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", my lady!"

"Very well. Tell Lady Caroline—oh, here you are! I was just sending to tell you that tea was ready. I saw you come in from your ride just before the curtains were drawn."

"Did you? Then you must have seen a pretty draggletailed spectacle. I've caked my habit with mud and torn it into shreds, and generally distinguished myself."

"Did Mr. Biscoe blush?"

"Not a bit of it. Mr. Biscoe's a good specimen of a hard-riding parson, and seemed to like me the better the muddier and more torn I became. By the way, his wife is coming to dinner, isn't she? so I must drop my flirtation with the rector, and be on my best behaviour."

"Caroline, you are too absurd; the idea of flirting with a man like that!"

"Well, then, why don't you provide some one better for me? I declare, Margaret, you are ignorant of the simplest duties of hospitality! I can't flirt with West, because he's my brother-in-law, for one reason, and because you mightn't like it perhaps, and because I mightn't care about it myself much. And there's no one else in the house whoOh, by the way, I'll speak about that just now—who else is coming to dinner?"

"Some people from the barracks—Colonel Tapp and Mr. Frampton, the man who hunted through all those papers the other day to find the paragraph you asked him about, don't you know; a Mr. Boyd, a good-looking fair-haired boy, with an eyeglass, one of the Ross-shire Boyds, who is reading somewhere in the neighbourhood with a tutor; the Biscoes, the Porters—people who live at those iron gates with the griffins which I showed you; and—I don't know—two or three others."

"Oh, heavens, what a cheerful prospect! I hate the army, and I detest good-looking boys with eyeglasses; and I've been all day with Mr. Biscoe, and I don't know the griffin people, nor the two or three others. Look here, Margaret, why don't you ask Mr. Joyce to dinner?"

"Mr. Joyce? I don't knowGood heavens, Caroline, you don't mean Lord Hetherington's secretary?"

"I do indeed, Margaret—why shouldn't I? He is quite nice and gentlemanly, and. has charming eyes."

"Caroline, I wonder at your talking such nonsense. You ought to know me sufficiently"

"And you ought to know me sufficiently to understand there's nothing on earth I detest like being bored. I shall be bored, out of my life by any of the people you. have mentioned, while I'm sure I should, find some amusement in Mr. Joyce."

"You might probably find a great deal of amusement in Norton, the steward, or in William, my footman; but you would scarcely wish me to ask them to dinner?"

"I think not—not in William, at all events. There is a dull decorum about Mr. Norton which one might find some fun in bearing"

"Caroline, be quiet; you are impayable! Are you really serious in what you say about Mr. Joyce?"

"Perfectly—why not? I had some talk with him in the library the other day, and found him most agreeable."