"Business, my dear, business." said her uncle. "You are a woman of business now, you know, and must attend to it."
"I wonder how often I have had notice of that fact," said Gerty. "I will go to Mr. M'llwaine now, uncle; but you must come too, please.--And, Nelly, will you take all the people to the croquet-ground? I will come as soon as I can."
Gertrude went away with her uncle, and Nelly led the way to an anteroom, in which garden-hats and other articles of casual equipment were to be found.
"It is to be hoped Captain Carteret will not keep on reminding Miss Baldwin of her duties and dignities," whispered Meredith to Eleanor, as the party assembled on the terrace. "It will be embarrassing if he does, though she carries it off well, with her pretty air of unconsciousness."
Eleanor said nothing in answer, but her face darkened, and the first sentence she spoke afterwards had a harsh tone in it.
The day was very fine, the summer heat was tempered by a cool breeze, and the glare of the sun was softened by flitting fleecy clouds. The group collected on the beautifully-kept croquet-ground of the Deane was as pretty and as picturesque as any which was to be seen under the summer sky that day. Mrs. Haldane Carteret, who was by no means "a frisky matron," but who enjoyed unbroken animal spirits and much better health than she could have been induced to acknowledge, was particularly fond of croquet, which, as her feet and ankles were irreproachable, was not to be wondered at. She was an indefatigable, a perfectly good-humoured player, and owed not a little of her popularity in the neighbourhood to her ever-ready willingness to get up croquet-parties at home, or to go out to them.
Haldane too was not a bad or a reluctant player; and, on the whole, the Deane held a creditable place in the long list of country houses much devoted to this popular science.
Miss Congreve and her sister "perfectly doated on" croquet, and all the young men were enthusiasts in the art, except George Ritherdon, who played too badly to like it, and had never gotten over the painful remembrance of having once caused a young lady, whose face was fairer than her temper, to weep tears of spite and wrathfulness by his blunders in a "match."
"How long is this going to last?" George asked Meredith, when the game was fairly inaugurated, and the animation of the party proved how much to their taste their proceedings were.
Meredith did not answer until he had watched with narrow and critical interest the stroke which Nelly was then about to make. When the ball had rolled through the hoop, and it was somebody else's turn, he said,