“It was a scheme of my own, mainly educational.  I’ll tell you all about it, when we have time.  What a lot of people all at once!  Ah, it’s the 2.40 train that brings them.  You came by the one before?  There’s Mrs. Toplady; so she isn’t late, after all.”

The audience began to seat itself.  A string-band, under a marquee aside from the plot of smooth turf which represented the stage, began to discourse old English music; on this subject, as soon as they were seated side by side, Dymchurch had the full benefit of May’s recently acquired learning.  How quick the girl was in gathering any kind of information!  And how intelligently she gave it forth!  Babble as she might, one could never (thought the amused peer) detect a note of vulgarity; at worst, there was excess of ingenuousness; a fault, after all, in the right direction.  She was very young, and had little experience of Society; in a year or two these surface blemishes would be polished away.  The important thing was that she did sincerely care for things of the mind, and had a mind to apply to them.

He sat on Miss Tomalin’s right hand; on her left was Mrs. Toplady.  The humourist of Pont Street, as she listened to the talk beside her, smiled very roguishly indeed.  Seldom had anything so surprised and entertained her as the progress of intimacy between May and Lord Dymchurch But she was vexed, as well as puzzled, by Lashmar’s recent step, which seemed to deprive the comedy of an element on which she had counted.  Perhaps not, however; it might he that the real complication was only just beginning.

“As You Like It,” was timed for a couple of hours, intervals included.  Miss Tomalin did not fail to whisper her neighbours at every noteworthy omission from the text, and once or twice she was moved to a pained protest.  Her criticism of the actors was indulgent; she felt the value of her praise, but was equally aware of the weight of her censure.  So the sunny afternoon went by.  Here and there a spectator nodded drowsily; others conversed under their breath—­not of the bard of Avon.  The air was full of that insect humming which is nature’s music at high summer-tide.

Upon the final applause followed welcome refreshment.  A table laden with dainties gleamed upon the sward.  Dymchurch looked after his ladies; but the elder of them soon wandered off amid the friendly throng, and May, who ate and drank with enjoyment, was able to give her companion the promised description of her activity at Northampton.  The listener smiled and smiled; had much ado, indeed, not to exhibit open gaiety; but ever and again his eyes rested on the girl’s countenance, and its animation so pleased him that he saw even in her absurdities a spirit of good.

“You never did any work of that sort?” inquired May, regarding him from a good-natured height.

“Never, I’m sorry to say.”

“But don’t you sometimes feel as if it were a duty?”

“I often feel I ought to do something,” answered Dymchurch, in a graver voice.  “But whether I could be of any use among the poor, is doubtful.”