mation, for it is hardly playing the _role_ of a hostess to look
beautiful and be chary of words and smiles.

It was impossible to attribute her silence to absence of mind, for she
followed with grave attention every word that was spoken; but for some
inexplicable reason she had withdrawn into herself. Uncle Max left her
to herself after a time, and began to talk politics with Mr. Hamilton,
and Mr. Tudor was soon compelled to follow his example.

Poor Mr. Tudor! I rather pitied him, for his other neighbour, Lady Betty,
had turned suddenly very sulky, and I had my surmises that Miss Darrell
had said something to affront her; for she made snapping little answers
when any one spoke to her, and, though they laughed at her, and nobody
seemed to mind, most likely they thought it prudent to give her time to
recover herself.

Miss Darrell's radiant good-humour was a strange contrast to her two
cousins' silence. She threw herself gallantly into the breach, and talked
fast and well on every topic broached by the gentlemen. She was evidently
clever and well read, and had dabbled in literature and politics.

Her energy and vivacity were almost fatiguing. She seemed able to keep up
two or three conversations at once. The lowest whisper did not escape her
ear; if Mr. Hamilton spoke to me, I saw her watchful eye on us, and she
joined in at once with a sprightly word or two; the next moment she was
answering Uncle Max, who had at last hazarded a remark to his silent
neighbour. Miss Hamilton had no time to reply; her cousin's laugh and
ready word were before her.

I found the same thing happen when Mr. Tudor addressed me: before he had
finished his sentence she had challenged the attention of the table.

'Giles,' she said good-humouredly, 'do you know what Mr. Tudor said in
the drawing-room just now, that it was the bounden duty of the Heathfield
folk to spoil and make much of Miss Garston?'

Both Mr. Tudor and I looked confused at this audacious speech, but he
tried to defend himself as well as he could.

'No, no, Miss Darrell, that was not quite what I said; the whole style
of the sentence is too laboured to belong to me: "bounden duty,"--no, it
does not sound like me at all.'

'We need not quarrel about terms,' she persisted; 'your meaning was just
the same. Come, Mr. Tudor, you cannot unsay your own words, that it was
right for you all to make much of Miss Garston.'

I thought this was spoken in the worst possible taste, a