hard gleam in his inscrutable eyes,
and yet a lurking sympathy too, nor was there anything but the latter in
the tone and tenor of his reply.

"I don't forget," he said, "and I think I can understand; but neither
must you forget that I offered to take you back there. So that's a sprig
of gum-tree, is it?"

Rachel gave him a sudden glance, which for once he missed, being
absorbed in a curious examination of the leaves.

"Did you never see one before?" she asked.

"A gum-tree?" said Steel, without looking up, as he sniffed and
scrutinized. "Never in all my life--to my knowledge!"

CHAPTER XI

ANOTHER NEW FRIEND

The country folk did call upon the Steels, as indeed, they could
scarcely fail to do, having called on him already as a bachelor the year
before. Nor were the Uniackes and the Invernesses the bell-wethers of
the flock. Those august families had returned to London for the season;
but the taboo half-suggested by Mrs. Venables had begun and ended in her
own mind. Indeed, that potent and diplomatic dame, who was the undoubted
leader of society within a four-mile radius of Northborough town hall,
was the first to recognize the mistake that she had made, and to behave
as though she had never made it. Quite early in June, the Steels were
bidden to a dinner-party in their honor at Upthorpe Hall.

"Mrs. Venables!" cried Rachel, in dismay. "Is that the gushing woman
with the quiet daughters who called last Thursday?"

"That is the lady," said Steel, a gleam of humor in his grim eyes. He
never expressed an opinion to his wife about any one of their
neighbors, but when she let fall an impression of her own, he would
look at her in this way, as though it was the very one that he had
formed for himself a year ago.

"But need we go?" asked Rachel, with open apprehension.

"I think so," he said. "Why not?"

"A dinner-party, of all things! There is no cover at the dinner-table;
you can't even wear a hat; you must sit there in a glare for hours and
hours!" And Rachel shuddered. "Oh, don't let us go!" she urged; but her
tone was neither pathetic nor despairing; though free from the faintest
accent of affection, it was, nevertheless, the tone of a woman who has
not always been denied.

"I am afraid we must go," he said firmly, but not unkindly. "You see, it
is in our honor--as I happen to know; for Venables gave me a hint when I
met him in the town the other day. He will take you in himself."

"And what is