main burden was no other than this--that wealth should be used by

those who were fortunate enough to possess it (here Trix looked
down and fidgeted with her Prayer-book) as a means of promoting

greater union between themselves and the less richly endowed, and
not--as, alas! had too often been the case--as though it were a

new barrier set up between them and their fellow-creatures (here
Miss Trix blushed slightly, and had recourse to her

smelling-bottle). "You," said the curate, waxing rhetorical as
he addressed an imaginary, but bloated, capitalist, "have no more

right to your money than I have. It is intrusted to you to be
shared with me." At this point I heard Lady Queenborough sniff

and Algy Stanton snigger. I stole a glance at Trix and detected
a slight waver in the admirable lines of her mouth.

"A very good sermon, didn't you think?" I said to her, as we
walked home.

"Oh, very!" she replied demurely.
"Ah, if we followed all we heard in church!" I sighed.

Miss Trix walked in silence for a few yards. By dint of never
becoming anything else, we had become very good friends; and

presently she remarked, quite confidentially:
"He's very silly, isn't he?"

"Then you ought to snub him," I said severely.
"So I do--sometimes. He's rather amusing, though."

"Of course, if you're prepared to make the sacrifice
involved----"

"Oh, what nonsense!"
"Then you've no business to amuse yourself with him."

"Dear, dear! how moral you are!" said Trix.
The next development in the situation was this: My cousin Dora

received a letter from the Marquis of Newhaven, with whom she was
acquainted, praying her to allow him to run down to Poltons for a

few days; he reminded her that she had once given him a general
invitation; if it would not be inconvenient--and so forth. The

meaning of this communication did not, of course, escape my
cousin, who had witnessed the writer's attentions to Trix in the

preceding season, nor did it escape the rest of us (who had
talked over the said attentions at the club) when she told us

about it, and announced that Lord Newhaven would arrive in the
middle of the next day. Trix affected dense unconsciousness; her

mother allowed herself a mysterious smile--which, however,
speedily vanished when the curate (he was taking lunch with us)

observed in a cheerful tone:
"Newhaven! Oh, I remember the chap at the House--plowed twice in

Smalls--stumpy fellow, isn't he? Not a bad chap, though, you
know, barring his looks. I'm glad he's coming."

"You won't be soon, young man," Lady Queenborough's angry eye
seemed to say.

"I remember him," pursued Jack; "awfully smitten with a
tobacconist's daughter in the Corn--oh, it's all RIGHT, Lady

Queenborough--she wouldn't look at him."
This quasi apology was called forth by the fact of Lady

Queenborough pushing back her chair and making for the door. It
did not at all appease her to hear of the scorn of the

tobacconist's daughter. She glanced sternly at Jack and
disappeared. He turned to Trix and reminded her--without

diffidence and coram populo, as his habit was--that she
had promised him a stroll in the west wood.

What happened on that stroll I do not know; but meeting Miss Trix
on the stairs later in the afternoon, I ventured to remark:

"I hope you broke it to him gently, Miss Queenborough?"
"I don't know what you mean," replied Trix haughtily.

"You were out nearly two hours," said I.
"Were we?" asked Trix, with a start. "Good gracious! Where was

mamma, Mr. Wynne?"
"On the lawn--watch in hand."

Miss Trix went slowly upstairs, and there is not the least doubt
that something serious passed between her and her mother, for

both of them were in the most atrocious of humors that evening.
Fortunately, the curate was not there; he had a Bible class.

The next day Lord Newhaven arrived. I found him on the lawn when
I strolled up, after a spell of letter-writing, about four

o'clock. Lawn tennis was the order of the day, and we were
all in flannels.

"Oh, here's Mark!" cried Dora, seeing me. "Now, Mark, you and
Mr. Ives had better play against Trix and Lord Newhaven. That'll

make a very good set."
"No, no, Mrs. Polton," said Jack Ives. "They wouldn't have a

chance. Look here, I'll play with Miss Queenborough against Lord
Newhaven and Wynne."

Newhaven--whose appearance, by the way, though hardly
distinguished, was not quite so unornamental as the curate had

led us to expect--looked slightly displeased, but Jack gave him
no time for remonstrance. He whisked Trix off and began to serve

all in a moment. I had a vision of Lady Queenborough approaching
from the house with face aghast. The set went on; and, owing

entirely to Newhaven's absurdchivalry in sending all the balls
to Jack Ives instead of following the well-known maxim to "pound

away at the lady," they beat us. Jack wiped his brow,
strolled up to the tea table with Trix, and remarked in exultant

tones:
"We make a perfect couple, Miss Queenborough; we ought never to

be separated."
Dora did not ask the curate to dinner that night, but he dropped

in about nine o'clock to ask her opinion as to the hymns on
Sunday; and finding Miss Trix and Newhaven in the small drawing

room, he sat down and talked to them. This was too much for
Trix; she had treated him very kindly and had allowed him to

amuse her; but it was impossible to put up with presumption of
that kind. Difficult as it was to discourage Mr. Ives, she did

it, and he went away with a disconsolate, puzzled expression. At
the last moment, however, Trix so far relented as to express a

hope that he was coming to tennis to-morrow, at which he
brightened up a little. I do not wish to be uncharitable--least

of all to a charming young lady---but my opinion is that Miss
Trix did not wish to set the curate altogether adrift. I

think, however, that Lady Queenborough must have spoken again,
for when Jack did come to tennis, Trix treated him with most

freezing civility and a hardly disguised disdain, and devoted
herself to Lord Newhaven with as much assiduity as her mother

could wish. We men, over our pipes, expressed the opinion that
Jack Ives' little hour of sunshine was past, and that nothing was

left to us but to look on at the prosperous, uneventful course of
Lord Newhaven's wooing. Trix had had her fun (so Algy Stanton

bluntly phrased it) and would now settle down to business.
"I believe, though," he added, "that she likes the curate a bit,

you know."
During the whole of the next day--Wednesday--Jack Ives kept away;

he had, apparently, accepted the inevitable, and was healing his
wounded heart by a strict attention to his parochial duties.

Newhaven remarked on his absence with an air of relief, and Miss
Trix treated it as a matter of no importance; Lady

Queenborough was all smiles; and Dora Polton restricted herself
to exclaiming, as I sat by her at tea, in a low tone and a

propos of nothing in particular, "Oh, well--poor Mr. Ives!"
But on Thursday there occurred an event, the significance of

which passed at the moment unperceived, but which had, in fact,
most important results. This was no other than the arrival of

little Mrs. Wentworth, an intimate friend of Dora's. Mrs.
Wentworth had been left a widow early in life; she possessed a

comfortable competence; she was not handsome, but she was