“Oh, no, we live in London,” the young girl was saying; “only I go to the same school as Ida Uniacke, and I am staying here on a visit.”

“I’ve finished it,” whispered Langholm to Rachel, “this very afternoon; and now I’m ready for yours!  I see,” he added, dropping back into the attitude of respectful interest in the young girl; “only on a visit; and who was the old gentleman from whom I tore you away?”

The child laughed merrily.

“That was my father,” she said; “but he is only here on his way to Leeds.”

“You mustn’t call it my book,” remonstrated Rachel, while Woodgate waited upon both ladies.

“But it was you who gave me the idea of writing a novel round Mrs. Minchin.”

“I don’t think I did.  I am quite sure it was your own idea.  But one book at a time.  Surely you will take a rest?”

“I shall correct this thing.  It will depress me to the verge of suicide.  Then I shall fall to upon my magnum opus.”

“You really think it will be that?”

“It should be mine.  It isn’t saying much; but I never had such a plot as you have given me!”

Rachel shook her head in a last disclaimer as she moved away with the Vicar of Marley.

“Oh, Mr. Langholm, do you write books?” asked the schoolgirl, with round blue eyes.

“For my sins,” he confessed.  “But do you prefer an ice, or more strawberries and cream?”

“Neither, thank you.  I’ve been here before,” the young girl said with a jolly smile.  “But I didn’t know I should come back with an author!”

“Then we’ll go out into the open air,” the author said; and they followed Rachel at but a few yards’ distance.

It was a picturesque if an aimless pageant, the smart frocks sweeping the smooth sward, the pretty parasols with the prettier faces underneath, the well-set-up and well-dressed men, with the old gray manor rising upon an eminence in the background, and a dazzling splash of scarlet and of brass somewhere under the trees.  The band was playing selections from The Geisha as Langholm emerged from the tea-tent in Rachel’s wake.  Mrs. Venables was manoeuvring her two highly marriageable girls in opposite quarters of the field, and had only her own indefatigable generalship to thank for what it lost her upon this occasion.  Mr. Steel and Mrs. Woodgate apparently missed the same thing through wandering idly in the direction of the band; but the tableau might have been arranged for the express benefit of Charles Langholm and the very young lady upon whom he was dancing laborious attendance.

Mrs. Uniacke had stepped apart from the tall old gentleman with the side whiskers, to whom she had been talking for some time, and had intercepted Rachel as she was passing on with Hugh Woodgate.

“Wait while I introduce you to my most distinguished guest, or rawther him to you,” whispered Mrs. Uniacke, with the Irish brogue which rendered her slightest observation a delight to the appreciative.  “Sir Baldwin Gibson—­Mrs. Steel.”