“He’s on the road, Lord Rufford, examining English institutions as he comes along.  He’ll be here by midnight.”

“Imagine the man coming to me and telling me that he was a friend of Goarly’s.  I rather liked him for it.  There was a thorough pluck about it.  They say he’s going to find all the money.”

“I thought Mr. Scrobby was to do that?” said Lady Penwether.

“Mr. Scrobby will not have the slightest objection to have that part of the work done for him.  If all we hear is true Miss Trefoil’s Senator may have to defend both Scrobby and Goarly.”

“My Senator as you call him will be quite up to the occasion.”

“You knew him in America, Miss Trefoil?” asked Lady Penwether.

“Oh yes.  We used to meet him and Mrs. Gotobed everywhere.  But we didn’t exactly bring him over with us;—­though our party down to Bragton was made up in Washington,” she added, feeling that she might in this way account in some degree for her own presence in John Morton’s house.  “It was mamma and Mr. Morton arranged it all.”

“Oh my dear it was you and the Senator,” said Lady Augustus, ready for the occasion.

“Miss Trefoil,” said the lord, “let us have it all out at once.  Are you taking Goarly’s part?”

“Taking Goarly’s part!” ejaculated the Major.  Arabella affected to give a little start, as though frightened by the Major’s enthusiasm.  “For heaven’s. sake let us know our foes,” continued Lord Rufford.  “You see the effect such an announcement had upon Major Caneback.  Have you made an appointment before dawn with Mr. Scrobby under the elms?  Now I look at you I believe in my heart you’re a Goarlyite,—­only without the Senator’s courage to tell me the truth beforehand.”

“I really am very much obliged to Goarly,” said Arabella, “because it is so nice to have something to talk about.”

“That’s just what I think, Miss Trefoil,” declared a young lady, Miss Penge, who was a friend of Lady Penwether.  “The gentlemen have so much to say about hunting which nobody can understand!  But now this delightful man has scattered poison all over the country there is something that comes home to our understanding.  I declare myself a Goarlyite at once, Lord Rufford, and shall put myself under the Senator’s leading directly he comes.”

During all this time not a word had been said of John Morton, the master of Bragton, the man to whose party these new-comers belonged.  Lady Augustus and Arabella clearly understood that John Morton was only a peg on which the invitation to them had been hung.  The feeling that it was so grew upon them with every word that was spoken,—­and also the conviction that he must be treated like a peg at Rufford.  The sight of the hangings of the room, so different to the old-fashioned dingy curtains at Bragton, the brilliancy of the mirrors, all the decorations of the place, the very blaze from the big grate, forced upon the girl’s feelings a conviction that this was