arden, where
camp chairs and rout seats stood invitingly on the lawn, and arbours
and sheltered paths waited for visitors to rest or walk beneath their
budding loveliness.

And behind the groups of gay dresses, set off by black coats and light
trousers, came white aproned waitresses with cakes and champagne. In
vain Reggie, who had missed getting a cup of tea indoors, watched for
a tray of tea cups. Champagne and ices, cakes and champagne, champagne
and sandwiches. There appeared to be nothing else, and everybody
seemed to be drinking champagne like so much water. Everybody, that
is, but Reggie and the Scotch minister and his wife.

Except for the desire for a beverage that was not champagne, Reggie
did not think a great deal about what he supposed was usual at
weddings, till he caught a whisper between two girls whom he was
piloting to see some ducklings on the pond at the bottom of the
garden.

"Howard can't walk straight already," whispered one with a giggle.

"Isn't it horrid!" answered the other, "Leslie Johns took me round
the garden just now, and he told me he had had far more champagne than
Howard had, but Howard has a weak head. Howard wanted me to go to
the conservatories with him. I'm glad I didn't; I should have been
positively ashamed to be seen with him. Why can't such fellows let
champagne alone?"

"They might at least know when to stop," sneered the first speaker.

Reggie, leading the way a few paces in front, between close rows of
gooseberry bushes, heard every word, and he set his teeth.

The subtle distinction between the man who had taken a quantity of
champagne and shewed no effects, and the man who had only had a little
and showed it, did not appeal to him. He felt a vast pity for Howard,
though he had not the slightest idea who Howard might be.

He got rid of his charges sooner than he had hoped, for a hint that
the bride would soon be down from changing her dress, reached the
girls and made them hurry back to the house, and Reggie, suddenly sick
at heart with combined remembrances that he and everybody else must
probably, in the general gathering of guests to one place, see poor
Howard's faltering footsteps, and the thought of Gertrude enjoying
herself so much that she could not write for his birthday, made his
way slowly and by a circuitous route back to the main party.

He was nearing the house when a turn in the path brought him face to
face with a young and handsomely-dressed woman