"You play very badly!"

"I might improve--if you would teach me."

"Might you? Then I will teach you!" She turned, bright and rosy, to her
step-mother. "I choose Mr. Arnold Brinkworth," she said.

Here, again, there appeared to be something in a name unknown to
celebrity, which nevertheless produced its effect--not, this time, on
Miss Silvester, but on Sir Patrick. He looked at Mr. Brinkworth with a
sudden interest and curiosity. If the lady of the house had not claimed
his attention at the moment he would evidently have spoken to the dark
young man.

But it was Lady Lundie's turn to choose a second player on her side.
Her brother-in-law was a person of some importance; and she had her
own motives for ingratiating herself with the head of the family. She
surprised the whole company by choosing Sir Patrick.

"Mamma!" cried Blanche. "What can you be thinking of? Sir Patrick won't
play. Croquet wasn't discovered in his time."

Sir Patrick never allowed "his time" to be made the subject of
disparaging remarks by the younger generation without paying the
younger generation back in its own coin.

"In _my_ time, my dear," he said to his niece, "people were expected to
bring some agreeable quality with them to social meetings of this sort.
In your time you have dispensed with all that. Here," remarked the old
gentleman, taking up a croquet mallet from the table near him, "is