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Truly pheasant shooting in England is, or was, a sport for the rich!

CHAPTER III

MISS HOLMES

Two and a half hours passed by, most of which time I spent lying down to
rest and get rid of a headache caused by the continual, rapid firing
and the roar of the gale, or both; also in rubbing my shoulder with
ointment, for it was sore from the recoil of the guns. Then Scroope
appeared, as, being unable to find my way about the long passages of
that great old castle, I had asked him to do, and we descended together
to the large drawing-room.

It was a splendid apartment, only used upon state occasions, lighted,
I should think, with at least two or three hundred wax candles, which
threw a soft glow over the panelled and pictured walls, the priceless
antique furniture, and the bejewelled ladies who were gathered there. To
my mind there never was and never will be any artificial light to equal
that of wax candles in sufficient quantity. The company was large; I
think thirty sat down to dinner that night, which was given to introduce
Lord Ragnall's future wife to the neighbourhood, whereof she was
destined to be the leader.

Miss Manners, who was looking very happy and charming in her jewels and
fine clothes, joined us at once, and informed Scroope that "she" was
just coming; the maid in the cloakroom had told her so.

"Is she?" replied Scroope indifferently. "Well, so long as you have come
I don't care about anyone else."

Then he told her she was looking beautiful, and stared at her with such
affection that I fell back a step or two and contemplated a picture of
Judith vigorously engaged in cutting off the head of Holofernes.

Presently the large door at the end of the room was thrown open and the
immaculate Savage, who was acting as a kind of master of the ceremonies,
announced in well-bred but penetrating tones, "Lady Longden and the
Honourable Miss Holmes." I stared, like everybody else, but for a while
her ladyship filled my eye. She was an ample and, to my mind, rather
awful-looking person, clad in black satin--she was a widow--and very
large diamonds. Her hair was white, her nose was hooked, her dark eyes
were penetrating, and she had a bad cold in her head. That was all I
found time to notice about her, for suddenly her daughter came into my
line of vision.

Truly she was a lovely girl, or rather, young woman, for she must
have been two or three-and-twenty. N