tand "so rich a regale." Sir Hargrave Pollexfen will come
afterwards with Harriet, and I am thankful to say that Lady Clementina
is not in England at present, so could not be invited.' She stopped,
looking up at him freshly to make a comment. 'Don't you detest Lady
Clementina?'

When they went into the dining-room, the choice spirits deemed worthy to
be at the board were each introduced by name to the Lady Eliz, who
explained that because of her infirmities she had been unable to have
the honour of receiving them in the drawing-room. She made appropriate
remarks, inquiring after the relatives of each, offering congratulations
or condolences as the case demanded. It was cleverly done. Courthope
stood aside, immensely entertained, and when at last he too began to
offer spirited remarks to the imaginary guests, he went up in favour so
immensely that Eliz cried, 'Let Mr. Courthope take the end of the table.
Let Mr. Courthope be father. It's much nicer to have a master of the
house.' She began at once introducing him to the invisible guests as her
father, and Madge, if she did not like the fancy, did not cross her
will. There was in Madge's manner a large good-humoured tolerance.

The table was long, and amply spread with fine glass and silver; nothing
was antique, everything was in the old-fashioned tasteless style of a
former generation, but the value of solid silver was not small. The
homely serving-woman in her peasant-like dress stood aside, submissive,
as it seemed, but ignorant of how to behave at so large a dinner.
Courthope, who in a visit to the stables had discovered that this
Frenchwoman with her husband and one young daughter were at present the
whole retinue of servants, wondered the more that such precious articles
as the young girls and the plate should be safe in so lonely a place.

Madge was seated at the head of the table, Courthope at the foot; Eliz
in her high chair had been wheeled to the centre of one side. Madge,
playing the hostess with gentle dignity, was enjoying herself to the
full, a rosy, cooing sort of joy in the play, in the feast that she had
succeeded in preparing, in her amusement at the literary sallies of
Eliz, and, above all perhaps, in the company of the new and unexpected
playmate to whom, because of his youth, she attributed the same perfect
sympathy with their sentiments which seemed to exist between themselves.
Courthope felt this--he felt that he was idealised through no virtue of