"Hum! I think I'll wait."
"Oh, as you please. You'll come, Harry?"
Sir Harry was delighted to come.
"Tora was most anxious to know them," the Colonel continued, "and I hate ceremonious ways. There'll be nobody else, except the Doctor and his wife."
"You haven't asked Hedger and Johnstone, have you?" inquired the Squire. "They're friends of Bannister's. I met them at his house."
"I haven't, but I don't know why I shouldn't."
"Still you won't," said Sir Harry, with a laugh.
The Colonel knew that he would not, and changed the subject.
"This is a great occasion," said Philip Hume at afternoon tea next day. "To-night we are to be received into county society."
"Is Colonel Smith 'county society'?" asked Nellie.