s."

"Except me," said Anthony.

"You won't feel strange long," said George. "Berry and Co. are sure to
be there, for one thing, and they'll wrap their arms about you in about
two minutes. They live at White Ladies. Some of them came to tea here
the day you went over to Brooch."

"I don't think I'd better go," said Anthony. "It's very kind of Lady
Touchstone, but I'm not much of a dancer, and----"

His protest was overruled uproariously.

"And he can't say he hasn't any clothes," said George, "because I've
seen them."

This was true. Out of the spoliation of his wardrobe Lyveden had clung
to a dress-suit, much as the orphan who lugs her carpet to the pawnshop
clings pitifully to an old miniature, remembering happier days.

Anthony coloured at the allusion, and Betty came flying to his
assistance.

"What a shame!" she cried. "Why should he go if he doesn't want to?
And, for all we know, none of us may be able to accept. We've got to
get leave first, and then we've got to ask if we can have the Ford."
She paused to glance at the time. "Ten to eight, and you haven't
washed the yard yet. Don't sit there, George. Get a move on. You
chauffeurs!" She fairly drove him about his business.

All the same, before the day was over she had wheedled a promise from
Anthony that, master and mistress permitting, he would go to the dance.

The Bumbles were duly approached, and consented readily to the
projected exodus, asking solicitously if a quarter to ten would be
early enough for the four to leave The Shrubbery, and offering the use
of the Ford before this was sought. Considering that they were not
upon the visiting list of Lady Touchstone, or, for that matter, upon
that of any other of their domestics' friends, their readiness to
facilitate the excursion must be accounted to them for righteousness of
a calibre rare indeed.

The night of the dance came, and the stars with it. All the company of
heaven twinkled and flashed out of a windless sky. No solitary breath
of air rustled the silence of the woods. Summer was dying hard. Yet
in the bottoms there lay--sure sign of Autumn--little hoary pools of
mist, just deep enough to swathe the Ford and its complement of
would-be revellers in a wet rush of frozen smoke, and make the girls
thrust their pink fingers beneath the rug, and Anthony his hands into
his coat-pockets.

For all that, for Lyveden the five miles to Bell Hammer were covered
too soon. He liked