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 number of stitches in knitting. Her friends constantly received from her, by post, offerings of little mats for the table, done up in an envelope, usually without any writing. She could make little mats in forty or fifty different ways. Toward the end of the dinner Macarthy, who up to this moment had been wholly occupied with his companions, began to look around him and to ask questions about the people opposite. Then he leaned forward a little and turned his eye up and down the row of their fellow-tourists on the same side. It was in this way that he perceived the gentleman who had said from the steamer that it was his fault that Mrs. Grice and her daughter had gone away for so many hours and who now was seated at some distance below the younger lady. At the moment Macarthy leaned forward this personage happened to be looking toward him, so that he caught his eye. The stranger smiled at him and nodded, as if an acquaintance might be considered to have been established between them, rather to Macarthy's surprise. He drew back and asked his sister who he was—the fellow who had been with them on the boat.

'He's an Englishman—Sir Rufus Chasemore,' said the girl. Then she added, 'Such a nice man.'

'Oh, I thought he was an American making a fool of himself!' Macarthy rejoined.

'There's nothing of the fool about him,' Agatha declared, laughing; and in a moment she added that Sir Rufus's usual place was beside hers, on her left hand. On this occasion he had moved away.

'What do you mean by this occasion?' her brother inquired.

'Oh, because you are here.'