By this time Nora was quite at her ease; but still there was before her the other difficulty, of meeting Lord Peterborough.  They were driven out of the avenue, and round to the right, and through the iron gate, and up to the huge front door.  There, upon the top step, was standing Lord Peterborough, with a billycock hat and a very old shooting coat, and nankeen trousers, which were considerably too short for him.  It was one of the happinesses of his life to dress just as he pleased as he went about his own place; and it certainly was his pleasure to wear older clothes than any one else in his establishment.  ‘Miss Rowley,’ he said, coming forward to give her a hand out of the carriage, ’I am delighted that you should see Monkhams at last.’

’You see I have kept you to your promise.  Caroline has been telling me everything about it; but she is not quite a complete guide as yet.  She does not know where the seven oaks are.  Do you remember telling me of the seven oaks?’

’Of course I do.  They are five miles off at Clatton farm, Carry.  I don’t think you have been near Clatton yet.  We will ride there tomorrow.’  And thus Nora Rowley was made at home at Monkhams.

She was made at home, and after a week or two she was very happy.  She soon perceived that her host was a perfect gentleman, and as such, a man to be much loved.  She had probably never questioned the fact, whether Mr Glascock was a gentleman or not, and now she did not analyse it.  It probably never occurred to her, even at the present time, to say to herself that he was certainly that thing, so impossible of definition, and so capable of recognition; but she knew that she had to do with one whose presence was always pleasant to her, whose words and acts towards her extorted her approbation, whose thoughts seemed to her to be always good and manly.  Of course she had not loved him, because she had previously known Hugh Stanbury.  There could be no comparison between the two men.  There was a brightness about Hugh which Lord Peterborough could not rival.  Otherwise, except for this reason, it seemed to her to be impossible that any young woman should fail to love Lord Peterborough when asked to do so.

About the middle of September there came a very happy time for her, when Hugh was asked down to shoot partridges, in the doing of which, however, all his brightness did not bring him near in excellence to his host.  Lord Peterborough had been shooting partridges all his life, and shot them with a precision which excited Hugh’s envy.  To own the truth, Stanbury did not shoot well, and was treated rather with scorn by the gamekeeper; but in other respects he spent three or four of the happiest days of his life.  He had his work to do, and after the second day over the stubbles, declared that the exigencies of the D. R. were too severe to enable him to go out with his gun again; but those rambles about the park with Nora, for which, among the exigencies of the D. R., he did find opportunity, were never to be forgotten.