Lady Goldthred.

That excellent woman, dressed, painted, and wound-up for the occasion,
was volubly delighted with everybody; and being by no means sure of
Dick's identity, dashed the more cordiality into her manner, while
careful not to commit herself by venturing on his name.

"_So_ good of you to come," she fired it at him as she had fired it at
fifty others, "all this distance from town, and such a hot day, to see
my poor little place. But isn't it pretty now? And are we not lucky in
the weather? And weren't you smothered in dust coming down? And you've
brought _the_ beauty with you too. I declare Sir Moses is positively
smitten. I'm getting quite jealous. Just look at him now. But he's not
the only one, that's a comfort."

Dick _did_ look, wondering vaguely why the sunshine should have faded
all at once. Sir Moses, a little bald personage, in a good-humoured
fuss, whom no amount of inexperience could have taken for anything but
the "man of the house," was paying the utmost attention to Miss Bruce,
bringing her tea, placing a camp-stool for her that she might see the
archery, and rendering her generally those hospitable services which
it had been his lot to waste on many less attractive objects during
that long sunny afternoon.

"Sir Moses is always so kind," answered Dick vaguely, "and nobody's
breakfasts are so pleasant as yours, Lady Goldthred."

"I'm _too_ glad you think so," answered his hostess, who, like
a good-hearted woman as she was, took enormous pains with these
festivities, congratulating herself, when she washed off her rouge,