to fill her rooms with the most
intolerable people in the world.

'My aunt said she wanted to give pleasure.'

'Ah! there's nothing so inconvenient to one's friends as good nature.
Who cares for what is shared indiscriminately?'

'I don't think I can trust Fitzjocelyn with my visiting-list just yet,'
said Lady Conway. 'You are too far above to be sensible of the grades
beneath, with your place made for you.'

'Not at all,' said Louis. 'Northwold tea-parties were my earliest,
most natural dissipation; and I spoke for these good people for my own
personal gratification.'

'Nay, I can't consent to your deluding Lady Conway into Mrs. Walby.'

'If there be any one you wish me to ask, my dear Fitzjocelyn--' began
Lady Conway.

'Oh no, thank you; Jem is quite right. I might have been playing on
your unguarded innocence; but I am the worst person in the world to
consult; for all the county and all the town are so kind to me, that I
don't know whom I could leave out. Now, the Pendragon there will help
you to the degree of gentility that may safely be set to consort
together.'

'What an unkind fling!' thought Isabel.

Louis took leave, exclaiming to himself on the stairs, 'There! if
comporting oneself like a donkey before the object be a token, I've
done it effectually. Didn't I know the exclusiveness of the woman?
Yet, how could I help saying a word for the poor little Walbys? and,
after all, if they were there, no one would speak to them but Aunt
Kitty and I. And Isabel, I am sure she scorned the fastidious
nonsense; I saw it in her eye and lip.'

After a quarter of an hour spent in hearing her praises from Miss
Faithfull, he betook himself to Mrs. Ponsonby's, not quite without
embarrassment, for he had not been alone with the mother and daughter
since August.

'I am glad you did not come before,' said Mary, heartily; 'I have just
done:' and she returned to her writing-table, while her mother was
saying,

'We like it very much.'

'You have not been copying that wretched concern!' exclaimed Louis.
'Why, Mary, you must have been at it all night. It is a week's work.'

'Copying is not composing,' said Mary.

'But you have mended it, made it consecutive! If I had guessed that my
father meant to trouble any one with it!'

'If you take pains with it, it may be very valuable,' said Mrs.
Ponsonby. 'We have marked a few things that you had better revise
before it goes to Oakstead.'

'Goes to Oakstead!' s