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allowing the match, but I don’t see how he can prevent it.”
    “He can’t,”Mrs. Hermitage said firmly, for Melanie’s benefit, but she was by no means convinced of it. On this hopeful note, they went to bed.
     

Chapter Four
     
    If a second visit from Monstuart led to curiosity, a third on the next morning threw the ladies into alarm. He had come to take his leave. Why, then, had he returned? But return he did, and at no late hour either. As on the day before, the gentlemen arrived at an inconvenient ten-thirty. Melanie always made a prolonged toilette. Next to her visits from Derwent, they were the most enjoyable part of her day.
    On this occasion, Miss Hermitage was also unprepared for company, but she was ready sooner than the others, so it was her lot to go belowstairs and entertain the callers till reinforcements arrived. As she glided noiselessly toward the Rose Saloon, she heard Monstuart’s deep voice coming from within. He spoke in a lowered tone, but his words were audible. “I think you have chosen poorly,”he said. It was enough to get her hackles up. He was trying to talk Derwent out of the match and was ill-bred enough to do it under their own roof!
    Her eyes were already flashing and her color was high when she entered the room. The welcome bestowed on Monstuart was a welcome in name only. “Good morning,”she said in a voice that would freeze live coals. “How very early you are up and about these days, Derwent,”she continued more affably to the younger gentleman. “We are not accustomed to seeing you before eleven.”
    Lord Derwent was never at his best with Miss Hermitage. “It’s a jolly fine day, you know, and I hoped Mellie might come out with me for a drive.”
    “She will be delighted,”Sally replied with just a flicker of a triumphant glance to the guardian. “Have you come to take your leave of us again, Lord Monstuart?”she asked.
    “I have decided to prolong my visit.”
    It was about the worst news he could deliver. He was going to stay on, trying to talk Derwent out of the marriage by reminding him he had “chosen poorly.”A sardonic smile thinned his lips. “You conceal your joy remarkably well, ma’am. I congratulate you.”
    “I doubt you will find much to amuse you in Ashford,”she said curtly.
    “On the contrary, I find a great deal to amuse me,”he countered. There was a little something in his smile that hinted she herself was a source of amusement, as one might take amusement from a raree-show or the antics of a monkey.
    “Absolutely,”Derwent said eagerly. “Drives and rides and dinner parties and assemblies. There are any number of things to do in Ashford. I never saw such a lively spot, for a dull little country town, you know.”
    “With chess and embroidery and reading to fill any little interstices that might occur in such a crowded calendar,”Monstuart added, leaving the words to convey their own impression of tedium, for there was no sarcasm in his tone.
    “We do not hope to match the gaiety of Beauwood,”Sally said pointedly, and regarded Monstuart with a meaningful eye.
    He refused to take offense but managed to add a little to his reply. “How should you, indeed?”
    It was well that the absent Hermitage ladies appeared at that moment. Monstuart received a baleful scowl from Melanie, but Mrs. Hermitage, who still remembered her scold from him, felt he was not a person to be offended and was very civil. She offered wine and a good many expressions of worried delight at his call.
    “Will you do me the honor of driving out with me, Miss Hermitage?”Monstuart asked when Derwent and Melanie rose to leave.
    Sally was unsure in what manner the gentlemen had arrived. If it was in two open carriages, as the spring weather made possible, her inclination was to remain at home. On the other hand, if Monstuart was to make an unwelcome third in Derwent’s carriage, she felt she must go, for her sister’s sake. Derwent solicited her company, saying