serve his guests.

He led them to the breakfast-room, which seemed to be in an uproar,
caused apparently by Bobbie Forbes and Lady Niton, who were talking at
each other across the table.

"What is the matter?" asked Diana, as she slipped into a place to which
Sir James Chide smilingly invited her--between himself and Mr. Bobbie.

Sir James, making a pretence of shutting his ears against the din,
replied that he believed Mr. Forbes was protesting against the tyranny
of Lady Niton in obliging him to go to church.

"She never enters a place of worship herself, but she insists that her
young men friends shall go.--Mr. Bobbie is putting his foot down!"

"Miss Mallory, let me get you some fish," said Forbes, turning to her
with a flushed and determined countenance. "I have now vindicated the
rights of man, and am ready to attend--if you will allow me--to the
wants of woman. Fish?--or bacon?"

Diana made her choice, and the young man supplied her; then bristling
with victory, and surrounded by samples of whatever food the
breakfast-table afforded, he sat down to his own meal. "No!" he said,
with energy, addressing Diana. "One must really draw the line. The last
Sunday Lady Niton took me to church, the service lasted an hour and
three-quarters. I am a High Churchman--I vow I am--an out-and-outer. I
go in for snippets--and shortening things. The man here is a dreadful
old Erastian--piles on everything you can pile on--so I just felt it
necessary to give Lady Niton notice. To-morrow I have work for the
department--_at home!_ Take my advice, Miss Mallory--don't go."

"I'm not staying over Sunday," smiled Diana.

The young man expressed his regret. "I say," he said, with a quick look
round, "you didn't think I was rude last night, did you?"

"Rude? When?"

"In not listening. I can't listen when people talk politics. I want to
drown myself. Now, if it was poetry--or something reasonable. You know
the only things worth looking at--in this beastly house"--he lowered his
voice--"are the books in that glass bookcase. It was Lady Lucy's
father--old Lord Merston--collected them. Lady Lucy never looks at them.
Marsham does, I suppose--sometimes. Do you know Marsham well?"

"I made acquaintance with him and Lady Lucy on the Riviera."

Mr. Bobbie observed her with a shrewd eye. In spite of his inattention
of the night before, the interest of Miss Mallory's appearance upon the
scene at Tallyn had not been lost upon him, any more