o their own
devices, to get into mischief during her absence.

"That rumpus with Ger upset her awfully," Mary whispered to Reggie as
they went into dinner, "and she won't risk anything fresh. It is a
shame, for she'd have loved it, and she always looks so ripping."

The three young people left directly after dinner. Grantly stopped the
carriage at an old Ephraim Teakle's cottage in the village, and they
all went in to let him have a look at them, for it was his smock, a
marvel of elaborate stitching, that Grantly was wearing.

Ephraim was eighty-seven years old and usually went to bed very early,
but to-night he sat up a full hour to see "them childer," as he called
the Ffolliots. He was very deaf, but had the excellent sight of a
generation that had never learned to read. He stood up as the young
people came in, and joined in the chorus of "laws," of "did you evers,"
indulged in by his granddaughter and her family.

"'Er wouldn' go far seekin' sarvice at mop, not Miss Mary wouldn't," he
said; "an' as for you, Master Grantly, you be the very moral of me when
I did work for Farmer Gayner over to Winson. Maids did look just like
that when I wer a young chap--pretty as pins, they was."

But Mrs Rouse, his granddaughter, thought "Mr Peel did look far an'
away the best, something out o' the common 'e were, like what a body
sees in the theatre over to Marlehouse . . . but there, I suppose 'tis
dressin' up for the likes o' Master Grantly, an' I must say
laundry-maid, she done up grandfather's smock something beautiful."

Abinghall, Sir George Campion's place, was just outside Marlehouse
town. The house, large and square and comfortable, was built by the
first baronet early in the nineteenth century. The Campions always did
things well, and "the boy and girl dance" had grown very considerably
since its first inception. Indeed, had Mrs Ffolliot realised what
proportions it had assumed since she received the friendly informal
invitation some five weeks before, she would have risked the
recklessness of the twins, and made a point of chaperoning Mary herself.

For the last three generations the Campions had been strong Liberals,
therefore it was quite natural that with an election due in a fortnight
there should be bidden to the dance many who were not included in Lady
Campion's rather exclusive visiting list.

It is extraordinary how levelling an election is, especially at
Christmas time, when peace and goodwill ar