BY
ARCHIBALD MARSHALL
Author of "Exton Manor"
NEW YORK
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
1919
COPYRIGHT, 1911, BY
DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
Published September, 1911
To
KATHLEEN
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I The Squire Is Infernally Worried
II A Question of Matrimony
III Exit Miss Bird
IV The Dower-House
V Lady George
VI Blaythorn Rectory
VII The Squire Puts His Foot Down
VIII The Squire Feels Trouble Coming
IX Dick Pays a Sunday Visit
X The Meet at Apthorpe Common
XI Dick Leaves Kencote and Makes a Discovery
XII The House Party
XIII The Hunt Ball
XIV A Shoot
XV The Guns and the Ladies
XVI The Money Question
XVII Sunday and Monday
XVIII Mrs. Clinton Chooses a Governess
XIX Mrs. Clinton In Jermyn Street
XX Aunt Laura Intervenes
XXI An Engagement
XXII Dick Comes Home
XXIII Humphrey Counts His Chickens
XXIV Virginia Goes to Kencote
XXV A Lawn Meet
XXVI What Miss Phipp Saw
XXVII The Run of the Season
XXVIII Property
XXIX Brothers
XXX Miss Bird Hears All About It
"Nina," said the Squire, "I'm most infernally worried." He was sittingin his wife's morning-room, in a low chair by the fire. In front ofhim was a table set for tea for one—himself. There were butteredtoast and dry toast and preserves, a massive silver teapot, milk jug,cream jug, and sugar basin, a breakfast cup of China tea, and twoboiled eggs, one of which he was attacking, sitting forward in hischair with his legs bent. He had come in from hunting a few minutesbefore, at about six o'clock, and it was his habit thus to consumeviands which most men of his age and bulk might have been afraid of, aslikely to spoil their dinner. But he was an active man, in spite ofhis fifty-nine years and his tendency to put on flesh, and it wouldhave taken more than a tea that was almost a meal to reduce hisappetite for dinner at eight, after a day in the saddle and a lunch offsandwiches and a flask of sherry. When his tea was over he wouldindulge himself in half an hour's nap, with the Times open at theleader page on his knee, a