It was not a large company assembled for dinner, though everybody was expected in the evening.  This was a different affair from Merricksdale; on old proud family name in the mistress of the mansion; old fashioned respectability and modern fashion commingled in the house and entertainment; the dinner party very strictly chosen.  Beyond that fact, it was not perhaps remarkable.  After dinner Dr. Maryland went home; and gayer and younger began to pour in.  Following close upon Mrs. Merrick’s entertainment, this evening too had the adornment of the full moon; and as this party also was an out-door one, as much as people chose to have it so, the adornment was material.  A large pleasure ground around the house, half garden, half shrubbery, was open to promenaders; and at certain points there were lights and seats and music and refreshments; the last two not necessarily together.  On this pleasure ground opened the windows of the drawing room and to this led the steps of the piazza; and so it came to pass in the course of the evening that the house was pretty well deserted of all but the elderly part of the guests.

In this state of things, said elderly portion of the company might as well be at home for all the care they are able to bestow on the younger.  Wandering in shadow and light, in and out through the winding walks, blending in groups and scattered in couples, the young friends of Mrs. Powder did pretty much as they pleased.  But one thing Wych Hazel had cause to suspect as the evening wore on, that though her guardian proper was fast at-home, she had an active actual guardian much nearer to her, and in fact never very far off for long at a time.  Indeed he paraded no attentions, either before Wych Hazel’s eyes or the eyes of the public; but if she wanted anything, Rollo found it out; if she needed anything, he was at hand to give it.  His care did not burden her, nor make itself at all conspicuous to other people; nevertheless she surely could not but be conscious of it.  This by the way.

Dr. Maryland had not been gone long; the new arrivals were just pouring in; when a seat beside Wych Hazel was taken by Mr. Nightingale.

‘You were at Merricksdale the other night?’ he said after the first compliments.

‘Yes, for a while.’

’I knew you would be.  I was in despair that I could not get there;—­but engagements—­contretemps—­held us fast.  I see now how much I lost.’

’Then you are released from imaginary evils,—­that must be a comfort.’

‘Do you know,’ said Stuart, ’I think the toilet is a fine art?’

She did not answer, looking at two or three somewhat remarkable specimens of the art that just then swept by.

‘Who is Miss Fisher, Mr. Nightingale?’ she asked suddenly.

‘O don’t you know Kitty?  To be sure, she has just come.’

‘No, I do not know her.  May I know who she is?’

’Not to know her, argues—­Well, it isn’t so extreme a case as that.  Miss Fisher, for character, is the most amiable of persons; for accomplishments, she can do everything; for connections, (do you always want to know people’s connections?) she is a niece, I believe, of Dr. Maryland’s.’