The breakfast-table at the Deane was but scantily furnished with guests at noon on the day after the ball, and only among the younger portion of that restricted number did the spirit of "talking it over" prevail. The gentlemen, with the exception of George Ritherdon, discussed their breakfast and their newspapers, and the matrons were decidedly sleepy and a little cross. George was in high spirits. He had very thorough notions on the subject of enjoying a holiday, and he included among them the delight of escaping from the obligation of reading newspapers.  
"Look at your friend, Mr. What's-his-name, of some queer place, like Sir Walter Scott's novels," he whispered to Gertrude. "The idea of coming on a brief visit to Paradise, and troubling your head about foreign politics and the money-market! There he goes--Prussia, indeed! What a combination of ideas--Bochum Dollfs and the Deane!"
 
Gertrude laughed. The pleasant unaffected gaiety of his manner pleased her. She had not been prepared to find George Ritherdon so light of heart, so ready to be amused, and to acknowledge it. She knew that he was younger than his chum Robert Meredith; but she had fancied there would be some resemblance between them, when she should come to know them better, in a few days' close association with them. But there was no resemblance; the friendship between them, the daily companionship had brought about no assimilation, and there was one circumstance which set Gerty thinking and puzzling to find out why it should be so. She had known Robert Meredith for years; her acquaintance with George Ritherdon was of the slightest; and yet, when the day after the ball came in its turn to a conclusion, and she once again set her mind to the task of "thinking it over," she felt that she knew more of George Ritherdon, had seen more certain indications of his disposition, and could divine more of his life than she knew, had seen, or could divine in the case of Robert Meredith. The girl was of a thoughtful speculative turn of mind, an observer of character, and imaginative. She pondered a good deal upon the subject, and constantly recurred to her first thought. "How odd it is that I should feel as if I could tell at once how Mr. Ritherdon would act in any given case, and I don't feel that in the least about Robert Meredith!"
 
"I was horribly ill-treated last night," George said, after he and Gertrude had exchanged ideas on the subject of newspapers in vacation time. "You ask me to a ball. Miss Baldwin, and then don't give me a dance. I call it treacherous and inhospitable."
 
"I couldn't help it," said Gerty earnestly, with perfect simplicity. "I had to 'dance down the set,' as they say in the country dances--to begin at the beginning of the table of precedence, and go on to the end."
 
"A very unfair advantage for the fogeys," said George Ritherdon, not without having made sure that none of Gertrude's partners of last night were at the table.
 
"The Honourable Dort would be grateful if he heard you, Ritherdon," observed Meredith.
 
"I suppose one couldn't reasonably call _him_ a fogey," returned George.
 
Gertrude laughed; but Eleanor said sharply,
 
"No, he is only a fool."
 
Meredith was seated next her, and while the others went on talking, he said to her in a low tone,
 
"Do you think him a fool? I don't. He knows the value of first impressions, and being early in the field, or I am much mistaken."
 
If Robert Meredith had made a similar remark to Gertrude, she would simply have looked at him with her grave gray eyes, in utter ignorance of his meaning; but Nelly understood him perfectly.
 
"He _is_ an admirer of Gerty's," she said.
 
"And a more ardent admirer of the Deane," said Meredith. "Do you like him?"
 
"Not at all. Not that it matters whether I do or not; but Gerty does not either. I daresay Lord and Lady Gelston think it would be a very good thing."
 
"No doubt they do. Nothing more suitable could be devised; and as people of their class usually believe that human affairs are strictly regulated according to their convenience, and look upon Providence as a kind of confidential and trustworthy agent, more or less adroit, but entirely in their interests, no doubt they have it all settled comfortably. There was the complacent ring of such a plan in that pompous old donkey's bray last night, and a kind of protecting mother-in-law-like air about the old woman, which I should not have liked had I been in your sister's place."
 
Eleanor's cheek flushed; the tone, even more than the words, told upon her.
 
"What detestable impertinence!" she said. "The idea of people who are held to be nobler than others making such calculations, and condescending to such meanness for money!"
 
"Not in the least surprising; as you will find when you know the world a little better. That the wind should be tempered to the shorn lambs of the aristocracy by the intervention of commoner people's money, they regard as a natural law; and as they are the most irresponsible, they are the most shameless class in society. As to their condescending to meanness for money, you don't reflect--as, indeed, how should you?--that money is the object which best repays such condescension."
 
There was a dubious look in Nelly's face. The young girl was flattered and pleased that this handsome accomplished man of the world--who was so much more _her_ friend, in consequence of their association in London, than her sister's--should talk to her thus, giving her the benefit of his experience; and yet there might be something to be said, if not for Mr. Dort's parents, for Mr. Dort himself. Her colour deepened, as she said timidly,
 
"How well _you_ must know the world, to be able to discern people's motives and see through their schemes so readily! But perhaps Mr. Dort really cares for Gertrude."
 
"Perhaps he does. She is a nice girl; and if her fortune and position don't spoil her, any man might well 'care for her,'as you call it, for herself. But the disinterestedness of Mr. Dort is not affected, to my mind, by the fact that the appendage to the fortune he is hunting does not happen to be disagreeable. Supposing she had not the fortune, or supposing she lost it, would Mr. Dort care for--that is, marry--your sister then?"
 
"I don't suppose he would," said Eleanor thoughtfully.
 
"And I am sure he would not," said Meredith. Then, as there was a general rising and dispersion of the company, he added in a whisper, and with a glance beneath which the girl's eyes fell, "The privilege of being loved for herself is the proudest any woman can boast, and cannot be included in an entail."
 
 
"Mr. M'llwaine wants to see you for half an hour, Gertrude, before he returns to Glasgow," said Haldane Carteret to his niece as she was leaving the breakfast-room, accompanied by Nelly and two young ladies who formed part of the "staying company" at the Deane.
 
"Does he?" said Gertrude. "What for? It won't take me half an hour to bid him good-bye."
 
"Business, my dear, business." said her uncle. "You are a woman of business now, you know, and must attend to it."
 
"I wonder how often I have had notice of that fact," said Gerty. "I will go to Mr. M'llwaine now, uncle; but you must come too, please.--And, Nelly, will you take all the people to the croquet-ground? I will come as soon as I can."
 
Gertrude went away with her uncle, and Nelly led the way to an anteroom, in which garden-hats and other articles of casual equipment were to be found.
 
"It is to be hoped Captain Carteret will not keep on reminding Miss Baldwin of her duties and dignities," whispered Meredith to Eleanor, as the party assembled on the terrace. "It will be embarrassing if he does, though she carries it off well, with her pretty air of unconsciousness."
 
Eleanor said nothing in answer, but her face darkened, and the first sentence she spoke afterwards had a harsh tone in it.
 
The day was very fine, the summer heat was tempered by a cool breeze, and the glare of the sun was softened by flitting fleecy clouds. The group collected on the beautifully-kept croquet-ground of the Deane was as pretty and as picturesque as any which was to be seen under the summer sky that day. Mrs. Haldane Carteret, who was by no means "a frisky matron," but who enjoyed unbroken animal spirits and much better health than she could have been induced to acknowledge, was particularly fond of croquet, which, as her feet and ankles were irreproachable, was not to be wondered at. She was an indefatigable, a perfectly good-humoured player, and owed not a little of her popularity in the neighbourhood to her ever-ready willingness to get up croquet-parties at home, or to go out to them.
 
Haldane too was not a bad or a reluctant player; and, on the whole, the Deane held a creditable place in the long list of country houses much devoted to this popular science.
 
Miss Congreve and her sister "perfectly doated on" croquet, and all the young men were enthusiasts in the art, except George Ritherdon, who played too badly to like it, and had never gotten over the painful remembrance of having once caused a young lady, whose face was fairer than her temper, to weep tears of spite and wrathfulness by his blunders in a "match."
 
"How long is this going to last?" George asked Meredith, when the game was fairly inaugurated, and the animation of the party proved how much to their taste their proceedings were.
 
Meredith did not answer until he had watched with narrow and critical interest the stroke which Nelly was then about to make. When the ball had rolled through the hoop, and it was somebody else's turn, he said,
 
"Until such time as, having breakfasted at twelve with the prospect of dining at seven, we can contrive to fancy that we want something to eat, I suppose."
 
"Well, then, as I don't play, and cannot flatter myself I shall be missed, I shall go in, write some letters, and have a stroll. You will tell Miss Baldwin I don't play croquet, if she should do me the honour to remark my absence?"
 
"Certainly," said Meredith; and as George turned away, he said to Eleanor,
 
"I will tell your sister, if she likes, that George does not play croquet or any other game."
 
She looked up inquiringly.
 
"No," he said; "he is the most thoroughly honest--indeed, I might say the only thoroughly honest--man, who has not any brains, of my acquaintance. _He_ won't lay siege to the heiress, and have no eyes for anybody else, no matter how superior; and yet a little or a good deal of money would be as valuable to George as to most men, I believe."
 
"I thought Mr. Ritherdon seemed very much taken with Gertrude," said Nelly, who had ceased for the moment to perform the mystic evolutions of the noble game--in a confidential tone, into which she had unconsciously dropped when speaking to Meredith.
 
"No doubt, so he is; but if she imagines he is going to be an easy conquest--to propose and be rejected--she will be mistaken."
 
A little while ago, and who would have dared to speak in such a tone of her sister to Eleanor Baldwin? Whom would she have believed, who should have told her that she could have heard unmoved insinuations almost amounting to accusations of that sister's vanity, pride, and coquetry? The sweet poison of flattery was taking effect, the deadly plant of jealousy was taking ready root.
 
"I suppose," she said, "every man who comes to the house will be set down as a _pretendant_ of Gertrude's--that is to be expected. If any man of our acquaintance has real self-respect, he will keep away."
 
"Indeed!" said Meredith. "Would you make no exceptions to so harsh a rule?--not in favour of those to whom Miss Baldwin would be nothing, except your sister?"
 
"Nelly, Nelly, what are you about? You are moonstruck, I think!" exclaimed Mrs. Haldane Carteret, whose superabundant alertness could not brook an interval in the game; and Eleanor was absolved by this direct appeal from any necessity to take notice of the words spoken by Meredith.
 
No immediate opportunity of again addressing Eleanor arose, so Meredith divided his attentions, in claiming her due share of which Mrs. Carteret was very exacting, among the party in general, which was shortly reinforced by the arrival of a number of visitors from the "contagious countries," and, conspicuous among them, Mr. Dort. This honourable young gentleman, though all his parents and friends could possibly desire, in point of fashion, was perhaps a little less than people in general might have desired in point of brains. Indeed, he possessed as little of that important ingredient in the composition of humanity as was at all consistent with his keeping up his animal life and keeping himself out of an idiot asylum.
 
In appearance he was rather prepossessing; for he had a well-bred not-too-pretty face, "nice" hair (and a capital valet, who rarely received his wages), a tolerably good figure, and better taste in dress than is usually combined with fatuity. He never talked much, which was a good thing for himself and his friends. He had a dim kind of notion that he did not get at his ideas, or at any rate did not put them in words, with quite so much facility as other people did, and so, actuated by a feeble gleam of common sense, he remained tolerably silent in general. As he naturally enjoyed the aristocratic privilege of not being required to exert himself for anybody's good or convenience, he experienced no sort of awkwardness or misgiving when, on making a call, after the ordinary greeting of civilised life (with all the _r_'s eliminated, and all the words jumbled together), he remained perfectly silent, in contemplation of the chimneypiece, except when a dog was present, then he pulled its ears, until the conclusion of his visit. He was very harmless, except to tradespeople, and not unamiable--rather cheerful and happy indeed than otherwise, though his habitual expression was one of vapid discontent. He would have made it sardonic if he could, but he couldn't; he had too little nose and not enough moustache for that, and his strong-minded mamma had advised him to give it up.
 
"I know your cousin Adolphus does it," Lady Gelston said indulgently; "but just consider his natural advantages. Don't do it, Matthew; you _can't_ sneer with an upper lip like yours; and, besides, why _should_ you sneer?"
 
"There's something in that, ma'am, certainly," returned her admiring son, with his usual deliberation. "I really don't see why I should; because, you see, I ain't clever enough for people to expect it:" which was the cleverest thing the Honourable Matthew had ever said, up to that period of his existence.
 
The young ladies in the neighbourhood rather liked Mr. Dort. He was a good deal in Scotland, chiefly because he found an alarmi............