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young to be introduced into Society, and he sent him back to the country, thinking that in two or three years’ time the lad would be only too anxious to leave it.
    But the years slipped by, and Philip showed no desire to follow in his father’s footsteps. He refused to go on the Grand Tour; he cared nothing for the Dress or Fashionable Manners; he despised the life of Courts; he preferred to remain in the country, usurping, to a great extent, his father’s position as squire. He was now some twenty-three years old, tall and handsome, but, as his father told his uncle, an unpolished cub.”
    Chapter II. In which is Presented Mistress Cleone Charteris
     
    Awhile back I spoke of three gentlemen who built their homes round Fittledean. Of one I said but little, of the second I spoke at length and to the tune of one whole chapter. It now behoves me to mention the third gentleman, who chose his site on the outskirts of the village, some two miles from Jettan’s Pride, and to the east. To reach it you must walk along the main street until the cottages grow sparse and yet more sparse, and the cobblestones and pavement cease altogether. The street turns then into a lane with trees flanking it and grass growing to the sides. A few steps further, and the moss-covered roof of Sharley House peeps above a high holly hedge which screens the place from the passer-by. There lived Mr Charteris, and his father and grandfather before him. Mr Charteris was the happy possessor of a wife and a daughter. It is with the daughter that I am most concerned. Her name was Cleone, and she was very lovely. She had thick gold curls, eyes of cornflower blue, and a pair of red lips that pouted or smiled in equal fascination. She was just eighteen, and the joy and despair of all the young men of the countryside. Particularly was she the despair of Mr Philip Jettan.
    Philip was head over ears in love with Cleone. He had been so ever since she returned from the convent where she had received a slight education. Before her departure for this convent, she and Philip, James and Jennifer Winton, had played together and quarrelled together since any of them could walk. Then Cleone went away to acquire polish, and the two boys thought very little more about her, until she returned, and then they thought of nothing else but her. The romping play-fellow was gone for ever, but in her place was a Vision. Philip and James began to eye one another askance.
    Delighted by the new state of affairs, Cleone queened it right royally, and played one young man against the other. But it was not long before she found herself thinking far more about Mr Jettan than was seemly. He began to haunt her dreams, and when he came to visit the
    house her heart fluttered a little and showed a tendency to jump into her throat. Cleone was stern with her heart, for there was much in Mr Jettan that did not meet with her approval. However masterful and handsome he might be—and Philip was both—he was distressingly boorish in many ways. Before her return to Sharley House Cleone had spent a few months with her aunt, who lived in Town. Several men had made very elegant love to her and showered compliments about her golden head. She had not cared the snap of her fingers for any one of them, but their graceful homage was very gratifying. Philip’s speech was direct and purposeful, and his compliments were never neat. His clothes also left much to be desired. Cleone had an eye for colour and style; she liked her cavaliers to be à la mode. Sir Matthew Trelawney, for instance, had affected the most wonderful stockings, clocked with butterflies; Frederick King wore so excellently fitting a coat that, it was said, he required three men to ease him into it. Philip’s coat was made for comfort; he would have scorned the stockings of Matthew Trelawney. He even refused to buy a wig, but wore his own brown hair brushed back from his face and tied loosely at his neck with a piece of black ribbon. No