"Thanks," replied Christina, to whom this assurance was addressed, "but you needn't send me there to be amused; you see, I have plenty to amuse me here," she added, with a smile that had been slow to come. "I'll go, of course, and with pleasure; but there would be more pleasure in some hard sets with you, Erskine, or in taking your photograph."
"Ah, you don't know what you'd miss, Tiny! I can promise you some sport, if you keep your eyes and ears open. Then you knew Lord Manister in Melbourne. In any case, you oughtn't to go back there without a glimpse of some of our fine folks at home, when you can get it."
"Oh, I'll go; but not for the sport of seeing your clergy and gentry on their knees to your fine folks, nor yet to be amused. As for Lord Manister, he was well enough in Melbourne; he didn't give himself airs, and there he was wise. But on his native heath! One would be sorry to set foot on the same soil. It must be sacred."
"Come, I say, I don't think you'll find the parsons on their knees. We think a lot of a lord, if you like; but we try to forget that when we're talking to him. We do our best to treat him as though he were merely a gentleman, you know," said Erskine, smiling, but giving, as he felt, an informing hint.
"Ah, you try!" said Christina. "You do your best!"
"Our best may be very bad," laughed Erskine; "if so, you must show us how to better it, Tiny."
"I should get Tiny to teach you how to treat a lord, dear," said Ruth, who saw nothing to laugh at, and seemed likely to lend her husband a severer support than the occasion needed.
"Say Lord Manister!" suggested Erskine. "Will you show me on him?"
"I may if you're good—you wait and see," said Tiny lightly. And lightly the matter was allowed to drop. For Herbert, as usual, was late for breakfast, which was for once a very good thing; and as for Ruth, it was merely her misfortune to have a near sight for the line dividing chaff from earnest, but now she saw it, and on which side of it the others were, for she had joined them and was laughing herself.
But Herbert would not have laughed at all; indeed, he had not a smile for the subject when he did come down and Ruth gave him his breakfast alone. It seemed well that Christina was not in the room. Her brother took the opportunity of saying what he thought of Manister, and what Manister had once called him behind his back, and what he would have done to Manister's eye had half as much been said to his face. His personal decision about the garden party was merely contemptuous. He was not going. Nor did he go when the time came. Meanwhile, however, something happened to modify for the moment his opinion of the young viscount whom it was Herbert's meager satisfaction to abuse roundly whenever his noble name was spoken.