CHAPTER II.
It was a perfect June evening: Doris was seated on one of the spreading lawns of Crosby Ledgers,--a low Georgian house, much added to at various times, and now a pleasant medley of pillared verandahs, tiled roofs, cupolas, and dormer windows, apparently unpretending, but, as many people knew, one of the most luxurious of English country houses.
Lady Dunstable, in a flowing dress of lilac crepe and a large black hat, had just given Mrs.Meadows a second cup of tea, and was clearly doing her duty--and showing it--to a guest whose entertainment could not be trusted to go of itself.

The only other persons at the tea-table--the Meadowses having arrived late--were an elderly man with long Dundreary whiskers, in a Panama hat and a white waistcoat, and a lady of uncertain age, plump, kind-eyed, and merry-mouthed, in whom Doris had at once divined a possible harbour of refuge from the terrors of the situation.
Arthur was strolling up and down the lawn with the Home Secretary, smoking and chatting--talking indeed nineteen to the dozen, and entirely at his ease.

A few other groups were scattered over the grass; while girls in white dresses and young men in flannels were playing tennis in the distance.

A lake at the bottom of the sloping garden made light and space in a landscape otherwise too heavily walled in by thick woodland.
White swans floated on the lake, and the June trees beyond were in their freshest and proudest leaf.

A church tower rose appropriately in a corner of the park, and on the other side of the deer-fence beyond the lake a herd of red deer were feeding.