CHAPTER XIX.
THE RECTOR'S GARDEN PARTY.
A few days after the tennis party at the Manor, at which Bertram had talked a good deal to Beatrice, and in a very marked way snubbed Matty Bell, the Rector gave his customary annual treat.

He gave this treat every year, and it was looked upon by high and low alike as the great event of the merry month of August.

The treat lasted for two days, the first day being devoted to the schools and the humble parishioners, the second to the lads and lasses, the well-to-do matrons and their spouses, who formed the better portion of his parishioners.
Every soul in the place, however, from the poorest fisherman's child to the wealthy widow, Mrs.Meadowsweet, wag expected to come to the Rectory to be feasted and petted, and made much of, at Mr.Ingram's treat.
With the small scholars and the fishermen and their wives, and all the humbler folk of the place, this story has nothing to do.

But it would not be a true chronicle of Northbury if it did not concern itself with the Jenkinses and their love affairs, with Mrs.Gorman Stanley and her furniture, with Mrs.Morris and her bronchitis, with Mrs.Butler and her adorable sister, Miss Peters, and last, but not least, with that young, _naive_, and childish heart which beat in the breast of Matty Bell.
There are the important people in all histories, and such a place in this small chronicle must the Bertrams hold, and the Meadowsweets.

But Matty, too, had her niche, and it was permitted to her to pull some not unimportant wires in this puppet show.
It is not too strong a word to say that Matty, Alice and Sophy Bell, received their invitation to play tennis at the Manor with a due sense of jubilation.