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"We are neighbours, you know, Mr. Bullsom," he said, "at Medchester. I met your niece there, and recognized her at once, though she was a little slip of a girl when I knew her last. Her father and I were in Montreal together." "God bless my soul," Mr. Bullsom exclaimed, in much excitement. "It's your lawyers, then, who have been advertising for Mary?" Lord Arranmore bowed.
Bullsom replied, mysteriously. The girls turned towards him almost simultaneously. "Is it Mr. Brooks?" Mr. Bullsom nodded. Selina flushed with pleasure and tried to look unconscious. "Only the day before yesterday," Mr. Bullsom said, "as chairman of the committee, I had the pleasure of forwarding to Brooks a formal invitation to become the parliamentary candidate for the borough.
Bullsom trudged up his avenue with fresh schemes maturing in his mind. In the domestic circle he further unburdened himself. "Mrs. Bullsom," he said, "I am thinking of giving a dinner-party. How many people do we know better than ourselves?" Mrs. Bullsom was aghast, and the young ladies, Selina and Louise, who were in the room, were indignant. "Really, papa," Selina exclaimed, "what do you mean?"
They form themselves into little sets, and if you don't belong, they treat you as though you had small-pox." "The men are all pleasant enough," Mr. Bullsom remarked. "I meet them in the trains and in business, and they're always glad enough to pass the time o' day." "Oh, the men are all right," Selina answered. "It's easy enough to know them. Mr.
Seventon is exclusive. But I'll just let him know she's got to come. Now, who else, girls?" "The Huntingdons might come if they knew that it was this sort of an affair," Selina remarked, thoughtfully. "And Mr. Seaton," Louise added. "I'm sure he's most gentlemanly." "I don't want gentlemanly people this time," Mr. Bullsom declared, "I want gentle-people. That's all there is about it.
Brooks walked thoughtfully through the silent streets to his rooms. Mr. Bullsom was an early riser, and it chanced that, as was frequently the case, on the morning following Brooks' visit he and Mary sat down to breakfast together. But when, after a cursory glance through his letters, he unfolded the paper, she stopped him. "Uncle," she said, "I want to talk to you for a few minutes, if I may."
They drop in to luncheon, or dinner, or whatever's going on, in the most friendly way, just as they used to, you know, when Sir Henry lived there, him as took wine with me, you remember. Lord, you should hear Selina on the military. Can't say I take to 'em much myself. I'll bet there'll be one or two of them hanging about the place to-night. Phew!" Mr. Bullsom mopped his forehead again.
"There is no one here." "Serve you right if there had been," Mr. Bullsom declared, gruffly. "A pretty state to come down in the morning at past nine o'clock." Selina tossed her head. "I am going to dress directly after breakfast," she remarked. "Then if you'll allow me to say so," her father declared, "before breakfast is the time to dress, and not afterwards.
But I always understood that your father's relations were as poor as church mice." "Poorer, uncle! His father my grandfather, that is was a clergyman with barely enough to live on, and his uncle was a Roman Catholic priest. Both of them have been dead for years." "And your father well, I know there was nothing there," Mr. Bullsom remarked, thoughtfully.
Bullsom, one of my best clients, a large builder in Medchester," Brooks answered. "Why?" He stopped suddenly short. Arranmore glanced towards him in polite unconcern. "You saw her with me at Mellon's, in Medchester. You asked me her name." Lord Arranmore bent the card in his forefinger, and dropped his eyeglass. "So that is the young lady," he remarked. "I remember her distinctly.
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