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Rh Sir Peregrine, however, intended to return before Christmas, and Mrs. Orme would go with him. He had come for four days, which for him had been a long absence from home, and at the end of the four days he would be gone.

They were all sitting in the dining-room round the luncheon-table on a hopelessly wet morning, listening to a lecture from the judge on the abomination of eating meat in the middle of the day, when a servant came behind young Orme's chair and told him that Mr. Mason was in the breakfast-parlour and wished to see him.

'Who wishes to see you?' said the baronet in a tone of surprise. He had caught the name, and thought at the moment that it was the owner of Groby Park.

'Lucius Mason,' said Peregrine, getting up, 'I wonder what he can want me for?'

'Oh, Lucius Mason,' said the grandfather. Since the discourse about agriculture he was not personally much attached even to Lucius; but for his mother's sake he could be forgiven.

'Pray ask him into lunch,' said Lady Staveley. Something had been said about Lady Mason since the Ormes had been at Noningsby, and the Staveley family were prepared to regard her with sympathy, and if necessary with the right hand of fellowship.

'He is the great agriculturist, is he not?' said Augustus. 'Bring him in by all means; there is no knowing how much we may not learn before dinner on such a day as this.'

'He is an ally of mine; and you must not laugh at him,' said Miss Furnival, who was sitting next to Augustus.

But Lucius Mason did not come in. Young Orme remained with him for about a quarter of an hour, and then returned to the room, declaring with rather a serious face, that he must ride to Hamworth and back before dinner.

'Are you going with young Mason?' asked his grandfather.

'Yes, sir; he wishes me to do something for him at Hamworth, and I cannot well refuse him.'

'You are not going to fight a duel!' said Lady Staveley, holding up her hands in horror as the idea came across her brain.

'A duel!' screamed Mrs. Orme. 'Oh, Peregrine!'

'There can be nothing of the sort,' said the judge. 'I should think that young Mason is not so foolish; and I am sure that Peregrine Orme is not.'

'I have not heard of anything of the kind,' said Peregrine, laughing.

'Promise me, Peregrine,' said his mother. 'Say that you promise me.'

'My dearest mother, I have no more thought of it than you have;—indeed I may say not so much.'