“Ay, you may well stare!” said the Earl. “I daresay you will stare more when I tell you why he comes!”

“I should think it very likely that I should,” she agreed, in a reflective tone. “For I cannot imagine what should bring him here, or indeed, how he is to be entertained at this season.”

“Never mind that! He is coming, Hester, to make you an offer!”

“Oh, is he?” she said vaguely, adding, after a thoughtful moment: “Does he want me to sell him one of Juno’s pups? I wonder he should not have told me so when we met in town the other day. It is not worth his while to journey all this distance—unless, of course, he desires first to see the pup.”

“For God’s sake, girl—!” exploded the Earl. “What the devil should Ludlow want with one of your wretched dogs?”

“Indeed, it has me quite in a puzzle,” she said, looking at him enquiringly.

“Paperskull!” said his lordship scathingly. “Damme if I know what he wants with you! He’s coming to offer for your hand!”

She sat staring at him, rather pale at first, and then flushing, and turning away her face. “Papa, pray—! If you are funning, it is not a kind jest!”

“Of course I’m not funning!” he answered. “Though it don’t surprise me you should think so. I don’t mind owning to you. Hester, that when he broke it to me that it was my permission to address you that he was after I thought either he was foxed, or I was!”

“Perhaps you were—both of you!” she said, trying for a lighter note.

“No, no! No such thing! But for him to be taking a fancy for you, when I daresay there are a dozen females trying to fix his interest, and everyone of ‘em as well-born as you, besides being younger, and devilish handsome into the bargain—well, I never was nearer to being grassed in all my life!”

“It isn’t true. Sir Gareth never had a fancy for me. Not even when I was young, and, I think, quite pretty,” said Hester, with the ghost of a smile.