on. You ask Roden, and he'll tell you the same thing,--my
lord." Then came a momentary break in the conversation, and Lord
Hampstead was seizing advantage of it to escape. But Crocker, who had
taken enough wine to be bold, saw the attempt, and intercepted it. He
was desirous of letting the lord know all that he knew. "Roden is a
happy dog, my lord."

"Happy, I hope, though not a dog," said Hampstead, trusting that he
could retreat gracefully behind the joke.

"Ha, ha, ha! The dog only meant what a lucky fellow he is. I have
heard him speak in raptures of what is in store for him."

"What!"

"There's no happiness like married happiness; is there, my lord?"

"Upon my word, I can't say. Good night to you."

"I hope you will come and see me and Roden at the office some of
these days."

"Good night, good night!" Then the man did go. For a moment or two
Lord Hampstead felt actually angry with his friend. Could it be that
Roden should make so little of his sister's name as to talk about her
to the Post Office clerks,--to so mean a fellow as this! And yet the
man certainly knew the fact of the existing engagement. Hampstead
thought it impossible that it should have travelled beyond the limits
of his own family. It was natural that Roden should have told his
mother; but unnatural,--so Hampstead thought,--that his friend should
have made his sister a subject of conversation to any one else. It
was horrible to him that a stranger such as that should have spoken
to him about his sister at all. But surely it was not possible that
Roden should have sinned after that fashion. He soon resolved that it
was not possible. But how grievous a thing it was that a girl's name
should be made so common in the mouths of men!

After that he sauntered into the smoking-room, where were congregated
the young men who were staying in the house. "That's a kind of thing
that happens only once a year," said Hautboy, speaking to all the
party; "but I cannot, for the life of me, see why it should happen at
all."

"Your governor finds that it succeeds in the county," said one.

"He polishes off a whole heap at one go," said another.

"It does help to keep a party together," said a third.

"And enables a lot of people to talk of dining at Castle Hautboy
without lying," said a fourth.

"But why should a lot of people be enabled to say that they'd dined
here?" asked Hautboy. "I like to see my friends at dinner. What did
you think about it, Ham