There were many things to be considered by the Trefoils.  There was the question of dress.  If any good was to be done by Arabella at Rufford it must be done with great despatch.  There would be the dinner on Monday, the hunting on Tuesday, the ball, and then the interesting moment of departure.  No girl could make better use of her time; but then, think of her difficulties!  All that she did would have to be done under the very eyes of the man to whom she was engaged, and to whom she wished to remain engaged,—­unless, as she said to herself, she could “pull off the other event.”  A great deal must depend on appearance.  As she and her mother were out on a lengthened cruise among long-suffering acquaintances, going to the De Brownes after the Gores, and the Smijthes after the De Brownes, with as many holes to run to afterwards as a four-year-old fox,—­ though with the same probability of finding them stopped,—­of course she had her wardrobe with her.  To see her night after night one would think that it was supplied with all that wealth would give.  But there were deficiencies and there were make-shifts, very well known to herself and well understood by her maid.  She could generally supply herself with gloves by bets, as to which she had never any scruple in taking either what she did win or did not, and in dunning any who might chance to be defaulters.  On occasions too, when not afraid of the bystanders, she would venture on a hat, and though there was difficulty as to the payment, not being able to give her number as she did with gloves, so that the tradesmen could send the article, still she would manage to get the hat,—­and the trimmings.  It was said of her that she once offered to lay an Ulster to a sealskin jacket, but that the young man had coolly said that a sealskin jacket was beyond a joke and had asked her whether she was ready to “put down” her Ulster.  These were little difficulties from which she usually knew how to extricate herself without embarrassment; but she had not expected to have to marshal her forces against such an enemy as Lord Rufford, or to sit down for the besieging of such a city this campaign.  There were little things which required to be done, and the lady’s-maid certainly had not time to go to church on Sunday.

But there were other things which troubled her even more than her clothes.  She did not much like Bragton, and at Bragton, in his own house, she did not very much like her proposed husband.  At Washington he had been somebody.  She had met him everywhere then, and had heard him much talked about.  At Washington he had been a popular man and had had the reputation of being a rich man also; but here, at home, in the country he seemed to her to fall off in importance, and he certainly had not made himself pleasant.  Whether any man could be pleasant to her in the retirement of a country house,—­any man whom she would have no interest in running down,—­ she did not ask herself.  An engagement to her must