n the district around Chipping Carby, the County
Families are very County indeed, few more so. There is in their demeanor
a kind of _morgue_ so funereal and mournful, that it inevitably reminds
the observer (who is not County) of an edifice in Paris, designed by
Meryon, and celebrated by Mr. Robert Browning. The County Families near
Chipping Carby are far, far from gay, and what pleasure they do take,
they take entirely in the society of their equals. So determined are
they to drink delight of tennis with their peers, and with nobody else,
that even the Clergy are excluded, _ex officio_, and in their degrading
capacity of ministers of Religion, from the County Lawn Tennis Club. As
we all know how essential young curates fresh from college are to the
very being of rural lawn-tennis, no finer proof can be given of the
inaccessibility of the County people around Chipping Carby, and of the
sacrifices which they are prepared to make to their position.

Now, born in the very purple, and indubitably (despite his profession)
one of the gentlest born of men, was, some seven years ago, a certain
Mr. St. John Deloraine. He held the sacrosanct position of a squarson,
being at once Squire and Parson of the parish of Little Wentley. At
the head of the quaint old village street stands, mirrored in a moat,
girdled by beautiful gardens, and shadowy with trees, the Manor House
and Parsonage (for it is both in one) of Wentley Deloraine.

To this desirable home and opulent share of earth's good things did Mr.
St. John Deloraine succeed in boyhood. He went to Oxford, he travelled
a good deal, he was held in great favor and affection by the County
matrons and the long-nosed young ladies of the County. Another, dwelling
on such heights as he, might have become haughty; but there was in this
young man a cheery naturalness and love of mirth which often drove him
from the society of his equals, and took him into that of attorneys'
daughters. Fate drew him one day to an archery meeting at Chipping
Carby, and there he beheld Miss Widdicombe. With her he paced the level
turf, her "points" he counted, and he found that she, at least, could
appreciate his somewhat apt quotation from _Chastelard_:

"Pray heaven, we make good Ends."

Miss Widdicombe _did_ make good "Ends." She vanquished Mrs. Struggles,
the veteran lady champion of the shaft and bow, a sportswoman who was
now on the verge of sixty. Why are ladies, who, almost professionally,
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