don't like gnats!' exclaimed the lady; 'how very extraordinary. Do
you know I have spent days and weeks upon the study of their habits and
dear little ways. They are the most interesting creatures--far superior
to _us_ in intellect. Do you know that they fight, and that they have
tribes which are life-long enemies--like those dreadful Corsicans--and
that they make little sepulchres in the bark of trees, and bury each
other--alive, if they can; and they hold vestries, and have burial
boards. They are most absorbing creatures, if you only give yourself up
to the study of them; but it is no use to be half-hearted in a study of
that kind. I went without so much as a cup of tea for twenty-four hours,
watching my gnats, for fear the opening of the door should startle them.
Another time I shall make the nursery governess watch for me.'

'How interesting, how noble of you,' exclaimed the other ladies; and
then they began to talk about bonnets, and about Mr. Smithson, to
speculate how much money this house and all his other houses had cost
him, and to wonder if he was really rich, or if he were only one of
those great financial windbags which so often explode and leave the
world aghast, marvelling at the ease with which it has been deluded.

They wondered, too, whether Lady Lesbia Haselden meant to marry him.

'Of course she does, my dear,' answered Mrs. Mostyn, decisively.

'You don't suppose that after having studied the habits of _gnats_ I
cannot read such a poor shallow creature as a silly vain girl. Of course
Lady Lesbia means to marry Mr. Smithson's fine houses; and she is only
amusing herself and swelling her own importance by letting him dangle in
a kind of suspense which is not suspense; for he knows as well as she
does that she means to have him.'

The next day was given up, first to seeing the house, an amusement which
lasted very well for an hour or so after breakfast, and then to
wandering in a desultory manner, to rowing and canoeing, and a little
sailing, and a good deal of screaming and pretty timidity upon the blue
bright river; to gathering wild flowers and ferns in rustic lanes, and
to an _al fresco_ luncheon in the wood at Medmenham, and then dinner,
and then music, an evening spent half within and half without the
music-room, cigarettes sparkling, like glowworms on the terrace, tall
talk from Mr. Meander, long quotations from his own muse and that of
Rossetti, a little Shelley, a little Keats, a good dea