"That would be very fine," she agreed gravely, "but we should have to prevail upon Mrs. Rowe and Cecily to conspire to keep me busy in my rags so that I could not attend the ball."

"But it is your idea not to have anything to do with elegant company, my dear," Mrs. Rowe interjected. "I would like nothing better than for you to meet a duke. The idea of my trying to prevent such a match! Is there to be a duke as a member of the party, Mr. Rowe?"

Her husband smiled fleetingly at his plate, but directed at his wife a secretive look that raised her curiosity and anticipation of the proposed arrivals to near-fever pitch.

---

The topic of Mr. Mainwaring and his anticipated arrival had hardly begun to flag one week later when it was given a reviving boost. The ostler of the Granby inn told the butcher, who as usual told all comers for the rest of the day, that two grand traveling carriages had stopped at the inn to ask directions to Ferndale. The first carriage had apparently been carrying passengers, though they had not been obliging enough to step down and be counted. The second was loaded down with trunks and bandboxes. Two gentlemen riders had accompanied the carriages, both dressed in the height of fashion. Indeed, it was one of these gentlemen who had asked directions of the innkeeper.

Mrs. Rowe had to live with her impatience for two whole days before her husband made the promised call on the new arrivals. Her only consolation was that the other gentlemen of the neighborhood would be feeling similar scruples about descending too early on the new owner of Ferndale. Mrs. Claridge would surely have found an excuse to call if she had had any information, and Lady Worthing would have found a more subtle way of informing her supposed inferiors if she knew anything of the identities of the visitors.