selda had moved to the door. "Nay--now, nay--do not be so cruel!"

Here voices were heard on the stairs, and the next moment Mrs. Travers
appeared, leaning on the arm of a man who wore a clerical dress, a black
coat and bands, and a bag-wig tied with a black bow.

"My son, Mr. Relly," Mrs. Travers said; and then she looked with dismay
at the figure by Leslie's side.

It was no time for explanation, and Leslie merely said:

"Miss Mainwaring will dine with us, mother."

"You are late, Leslie," Mrs. Travers replied, in a low, constrained
voice; and she did not do more than bow to Griselda, adding: "Our
mid-day meal has been waiting for some time. Shall we go to the
dining-parlour at once?"

Surely no position could be more embarrassing for poor Griselda. All her
dignity and gentle stateliness of manner seemed, under this new
condition of things, to desert her. Her large hat scarcely concealed the
distress which was so plainly marked on her face, and tears were in her
eyes as she said, in a low, trembling voice to Mrs. Travers:

"I fear I intrude, madam?"

But Mrs. Travers was anxious to avoid what she called the hollow
courtesies of the world of fashion, and thus she only replied:

"Will you be pleased to remove your warm pelisse? The air is very cold.
Abigail," she said to a maid-servant who had appeared, "conduct this
lady to the inner parlour, and assist her to lay aside her pelisse. Now,
Mr. Relly, we will take our seats, and my son will do the honours."

Griselda hastily unfastened her pelisse, but instead of following the
maid to the room, she held it towards her; and then, with a gesture
which implied her trust in Leslie, she put her hand into his arm, and he
led her to the dinner-table, where Giles had taken up his position
behind his mistress's chair.

The meal was, as Giles had intimated it would be, very bountiful. Mr.
Relly said a long grace, which was really a prayer, and which Griselda
thought would never end.

During dinner the conversation lay between Mr. Relly and Mrs. Travers,
if conversation it could be called. It was rather an exchange of
religious sentiments, quotations of texts of Scripture, seasoned with
denouncements of the vanities of the world, as Bath spread them out for
the unwary. Griselda felt that many of Mr. Relly's shafts were directed
at her, and she felt increasingly ill at ease and uncomfortable. It was
only when she could summon courage to look at Leslie that her spirits
r