at the other end of the table, was as gay as a lark.  Mrs MacHugh sat on one side of him, and Miss Stanbury on the other, and he laughed at the two old ladies, reminding them of his former doings in Exeter, how he had hunted Mrs MacHugh’s cat, and had stolen Aunt Stanbury’s best apricot jam, till everybody began to perceive that he was quite a success.  Even Sir Peter Mancrudy laughed at his jokes, and Mrs Powel, from the other side of Sir Peter, stretched her head forward so that she might become one of the gay party.

‘There isn’t a word of it true,’ said Miss Stanbury.  ’It’s all pure invention, and a great scandal.  I never did such a thing in my life.’

‘Didn’t you though?’ said Brooke Burgess.  ’I remember it as well as if it was yesterday, and old Dr. Ball, the prebendary, with the carbuncles on his nose, saw it too!’

‘Dr. Ball had no carbuncles on his nose,’ said Mrs MacHugh.  ’You’ll say next that I have carbuncles on my nose.’

’He had three.  I remember each of them quite well, and so does Sir Peter.’

Then everybody laughed; and Martha, who was in the room, knew that Brooke Burgess was a complete success.

In the meantime Mr Gibson was talking to Dorothy; but Dorothy was endeavouring to listen to the conversation at the other end of the table.  ‘I found it very dirty on the roads to-day outside the city,’ said Mr Gibson.

‘Very dirty,’ said Dorothy, looking round at Mr Burgess, as she spoke.

‘But the pavement in the High Street was dry enough.’

‘Quite dry,’ said Dorothy.  Then there came a peal of laughter from Mrs MacHugh and Sir Peter, and Dorothy wondered whether anybody before had ever made those two steady old people laugh after that fashion.

’I should so like to get a drive with you up to the top of Haldon Hill,’ said Mr Gibson.  ’When the weather gets fine, that is.  Mrs Powel was talking about it.’

‘It would be very nice,’ said Dorothy.

‘You have never seen the view from Haldon Hill yet?’ asked Mr Gibson.  But to this question Dorothy could make no answer.  Miss Stanbury had lifted one of the table-spoons, as though she was going to strike Mr Brooke Burgess with the bowl of it.  And this during a dinner party!  From that moment Dorothy turned herself round, and became one of the listeners to the fun at the other end of the table; Poor Mr Gibson soon found himself ‘nowhere.’

‘I never saw a man so much altered in my life,’ said Mrs MacHugh, up in the drawing-room.

‘I don’t remember that he used to be clever.’

‘He was a bright boy!’ said Miss Stanbury.

‘But the Burgesses all used to be such serious, straitlaced people,’ said Mrs MacHugh.  ‘Excellent people,’ she added, remembering the source of her friend’s wealth; ‘but none of them like that.’

‘I call him a very handsome man,’ said Mrs Powel.  ’I suppose he’s not married yet?’