The hostess settled the bow at her collar more becomingly, and her two pretty daughters feigned to be deeply occupied with some drawn thread work.

David Helmsley, noting everything that was going on from his coign of vantage, recognised at once the dissipated, effeminate-looking young man, who, stepping out of a private room which opened on a corridor apparently leading to the inner part of the house, sauntered lazily up to the bar and, resting his arm upon its oaken counter, smiled condescendingly, not to say insolently, upon the women who stood behind it.

There was no mistaking him,--it was the same Reginald Wrotham whose scandals in society had broken his worthy father's heart, and who now, succeeding to a hitherto unblemished title, was doing his best to load it with dishonour.

He was followed by his friend Brookfield,--a heavily-built, lurching sort of man, with a nose reddened by strong drink, and small lascivious eyes which glittered dully in his head like the eyes of poisonous tropical beetle.

The hush among the "lower" class of company at the inn deepened into the usual stupid awe which at times so curiously affects untutored rustics who are made conscious of the presence of a "lord." Said a friend of the present writer's to a waiter in a country hotel where one of these "lords" was staying for a few days: "I want a letter to catch to-night's post, but I'm afraid the mail has gone from the hotel.