o be fully furnished. The appearance of a coachman daily
exercising two noble carriage-horses was also hailed as a sign that the
colonel did not mean to lead an unsociable life.

So Franchope and its neighbourhood were content, and watched the
arrivals at the station day by day with patient interest. At length, in
the first week in August, it was observed that the colonel's carriage
drew up at the railway office to meet the evening train from London.
From a first-class carriage there emerged three persons--the colonel, an
elderly lady, and a young man who might be some twenty years of age; a
footman and a lady's-maid also made their appearance; and all drove off
for Riverton Park. Who could count the pairs of eyes that looked out
from various windows in Franchope as the carriage drove rapidly through
the town? A glance, a flash, and the new-comers were gone.

And now, in a few days, the whole household having twice occupied the
family pews in the old parish church on the Lord's day, the neighbouring
gentry began to make their calls.

The first to do so were Lady Willerly and her daughter. Her ladyship
had discovered that she was distantly connected with the colonel, and
hastened to show her interest in him as speedily as possible. Having
cordially shaken hands with her and her daughter. Colonel Dawson turned
to the lady and young man by his side and introduced them as, "My sister
Miss Dawson; my nephew Mr Horace Jackson." So the relationships were
settled, and public curiosity set at rest.

Numerous other callers followed, and by all it was agreed that the
family was a decided acquisition; a pity perhaps that there was not a
Mrs Dawson and a few more young people to fill the roomy old house and
add liveliness to the various parties and social gatherings among the
gentry. A younger man than the colonel would undoubtedly have been more
to the general taste, especially as it was soon found that the family at
Park House neither accepted nor gave dinner invitations, nor indeed
invitations to any gatherings except quiet afternoon friendly meetings,
where intercourse with a few neighbours could be enjoyed without mixing
with the gaieties of the fashionable world.

So good society shrugged its shoulders, and raised its eyebrows, and
regretted that the colonel, who doubtless was a good man, should have
taken up such strict and strange notions. However, people must please
themselves; and so it came to pass that the