ent owner, has plenty of money, and (having tasted the
pleasures of matrimony for only five years) has no knowledge (as yet) of
the delights of college and school bills coming in at Christmas-time, it
is his will to fill the Chase at that season with guests, to each of
whom he extends a welcome, as hearty as it is sincere.

"Bella! are you not going to join the riding-party this afternoon?" he
said across the luncheon-table to his wife, one day in a December not
long ago.

"Bella" was a dimpled little woman, whose artless expression of
countenance would well bear comparison with the honest, genial face
opposite to her, and who replied at once--

"No! not this afternoon, Harry, dear. You know the Damers may come at
any time between this and seven o'clock, and I should not like to be out
when they arrive."

"And may I ask Mrs. Clayton who _are_ the Damers," inquired a friend of
her husband, who, on account of being handsome, considered himself
licensed to be pert--"that their advent should be the cause of our
losing the pleasure of your company this afternoon?"

But the last thing Bella Clayton ever did was to take offence.

"The Damers are my cousins, Captain Moss," she replied; "at least
Blanche Damer is."

At this juncture a dark-eyed man who was sitting at the other end of the
table dropped the flirting converse he had been maintaining with a
younger sister of Mrs. Clayton's, and appeared to become interested in
what his hostess was saying.

"Colonel Damer," he continued, "has been in India for the last twelve
years, and only returned to England a month ago; therefore it would seem
unkind on the first visit he has paid to his relatives that there should
be no one at home to welcome him."

"Has Mrs. Damer been abroad for as long a time?" resumed her questioner,
a vision arising on his mental faculties of a lemon-coloured woman with
shoes down at heel.

"Oh dear no!" replied his hostess. "Blanche came to England about five
years ago, but her health has been too delicate to rejoin her husband in
India since. Have we all finished, Harry, dear?"--and in another minute
the luncheon-table was cleared.

As Mrs. Clayton crossed the hall soon afterwards to visit her nursery,
the same dark-eyed man who had regarded her fixedly when she mentioned
the name of Blanche Damer followed and accosted her.

"Is it long since you have seen your cousin Mrs. Damer, Mrs. Clayton?"

"I saw her about three years ago, Mr. Lauren