day he spoke very little, and was considered a very dull young
man by the lady he took in to dinner. Mr. Travers in vain tried to draw
him out. He had anticipated much amusement from the eccentricities of
his guest, who had talked volubly enough in the fernery, and was sadly
disappointed. "I feel," he whispered to Mrs. Campion, "like poor Lord
Pomfret, who, charmed with Punch's lively conversation, bought him, and
was greatly surprised that, when he had once brought him home, Punch
would not talk."

"But your Punch listens," said Mrs. Campion, "and he observes."

George Belvoir, on the other hand, was universally declared to be very
agreeable. Though not naturally jovial, he forced himself to appear
so,--laughing loud with the squires, and entering heartily with
their wives and daughters into such topics as county-balls and
croquet-parties; and when after dinner he had, Cato-like, 'warmed his
virtue with wine,' the virtue came out very lustily in praise of good
men,--namely, men of his own party,--and anathemas on bad men,--namely,
men of the other party.

Now and then he appealed to Kenelm, and Kenelm always returned the same
answer, "There is much in what you say."

The first evening closed in the usual way in country houses. There was
some lounging under moonlight on the terrace before the house; then
there was some singing by young lady amateurs, and a rubber of whist for
the elders; then wine-and-water, hand-candlesticks, a smoking-room for
those who smoked, and bed for those who did not.

In the course of the evening, Cecilia, partly in obedience to the duties
of hostess and partly from that compassion for shyness which kindly and
high-bred persons entertain, had gone a little out of her way to allure
Kenelm forth from the estranged solitude he had contrived to weave
around him. In vain for the daughter as for the father. He replied to
her with the quiet self-possession which should have convinced her that
no man on earth was less entitled to indulgence for the gentlemanlike
infirmity of shyness, and no man less needed the duties of any hostess
for the augmentation of his comforts, or rather for his diminished sense
of discomfort; but his replies were in monosyllables, and made with the
air of a man who says in his heart, "If this creature would but leave me
alone!"

Cecilia, for the first time in her life, was piqued, and, strange to
say, began to feel more interest about this indifferent stranger than
abo