ular exertion,
Mr. Delamayn?" she asked, sharply. "Must you always be pulling in a
boat-race, or flying over a high jump? If you had a mind, you would want
to relax it. You have got muscles instead. Why not relax _them_?"

The shafts of Miss Lundie's bitter wit glided off Mr. Geoffrey Delamayn
like water off a duck's back.

"Just as you please," he said, with stolid good-humor. "Don't be
offended. I came here with ladies--and they wouldn't let me smoke. I
miss my smoke. I thought I'd slip away a bit and have it. All right!
I'll play."

"Oh! smoke by all means!" retorted Blanche. "I shall choose somebody
else. I won't have you!"

The honorable young gentleman looked unaffectedly relieved. The petulant
young lady turned her back on him, and surveyed the guests at the other
extremity of the summer-house.

"Who shall I choose?" she said to herself.

A dark young man--with a face burned gipsy-brown by the sun; with
something in his look and manner suggestive of a roving life, and
perhaps of a familiar acquaintance with the sea--advanced shyly, and
said, in a whisper:

"Choose me!"

Blanche's face broke prettily into a charming smile. Judging from
appearances, the dark young man had a place in her estimation peculiarly
his own.

"You!" she said, coquettishly. "You are going to leave us in an hour's
time!"

He ventured a step nearer. "I am coming back," he pleaded, "the day
after to-morrow."

"You play very badly!"

"I might improve--if you would teach me."

"Might you? Then I will teach you!" She turned, bright and rosy, to her
step-mother. "I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth," she said.

Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to
celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect--not, this time, on
Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked at Mr. Brinkworth with a
sudden interest and curiosity. If the lady of the house had not claimed
his attention at the moment he would evidently have spoken to the dark
young man.

But it was Lady Lundie's turn to choose a second player on her side.
Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she had her
own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the family. She
surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.

"Mamma!" cried Blanche. "What can you be thinking of? Sir Patrick won't
play. Croquet wasn't discovered in his time."

Sir Patrick never allowed "his time" to be made the subject of
disparaging remarks by the y