"You'll create ill feeling," says Mr. Browne. "The Stanley girls have
new gowns, and they want to show them. They'll say nasty things about
you."

"That's your second hint on that subject," says Sir Mark. "Get it out,
Dicky, you are dying to say something. What was it you were going to say
a few minutes ago about some fellow who--?"

"Who for seven years was going to give a ball, and was asked everywhere
on the strength of it. His friends hoped against hope, don't you see,
but nothing ever came of it. At the end of the seven years he was as far
off it as ever."

"And what did his friends do to him then," asks Julia, who is one of
those people who always want _more_ than enough.

"Deponent sayeth not," says Mr. Browne. "Perhaps it was too dark a tale
for publication. I suppose they either smote him between the joints of
his harness till he died, or else they fell upon him in a body and rent
him in pieces."

"What nonsense you can talk at times," says Mrs. Beaufort, mindful of
his speech of a few moments ago.

"Not I," says Dicky Browne.

It is about four o'clock, and already the shadows are lengthening upon
the grass, the soft, cool grass upon which they are all sitting beneath
the shade of the huge chestnut trees, that fling their branches in all
directions, some east, some west, some heavenwards.

A little breeze is blowing towards them sweet essences of pinewood and
dark fir. Above in the clear sky the fleecy clouds assume each moment a
new form--a yet more tender color--now pale blue, now gray, now a soft
pink that verges upon crimson. Down far in the hollows a white mist is
floating away, away, to the ocean, and there, too, can be seen (playing
hide and seek amongst the great trunks of the giant elms) the flitting
forms of the children dancing fantastically to and fro.

The scent of dying meadow-sweet is on the air, and the hush and the calm
of evening.

"Dulce, command us to have tea out here," says Sir Mark, removing his
cigarette from his lips for a moment.

"Dear Dulce, yes; that will be sweet," says Portia, who is very silent
and very pale and very beautiful to-day.

"Dicky, go and tell some one to bring tea here directly," says Dulce;
"and say they are to bring peaches for Portia, because she loves them,
and say anything else you like for yourself."

"Thanks; Curacao will do me very nicely," says Dicky, with all the
promptitude that distinguishes him.

"And Maraschino," suggests Sir Mark, in