There was a numerous gathering of Claverings in the drawing-room of the Great House when the family from the rectory arrived comprising three generations; for the nurse was in the room holding the heir in her arms. Mrs. Clavering and Fanny of course inspected the child at once, as they were bound to do, while Lady Clavering welcomed Florence Burton. Archie spoke a word or two to his uncle, and Sir Hugh vouchsafed to give one finger to his cousin Harry by way of shaking hands with him. Then there came a feeble squeak from the infant, and there was a cloud at once upon Sir Hugh\'s brow. "Hermione," he said, "I wish you wouldn\'t have the child in here. It\'s not the place for him. He\'s always cross. I\'ve said a dozen times I wouldn\'t have him down here just before dinner." Then a sign was made to the nurse, and she walked off with her burden. It was a poor, rickety, unalluring bairn, but it was all that Lady Clavering had, and she would fain have been allowed to show it to her relatives, as other mothers are allowed to do.

"Hugh," said his wife, "shall I introduce you to Miss Burton?"

Then Sir Hugh came forward and shook hands with his new guest, with some sort of apology for his remissness, while Harry stood by, glowering at him, with offence in his eye. "My father is right," he had said to himself when his cousin failed to notice Florence on her first entrance into the room; "he is impertinent as well as disagreeable. I don\'t care for quarrels in the parish, and so I shall let him know."

"Upon my word she\'s a doosed good-looking little thing," said Archie, coming up to him, after having also shaken hands with her;—"doosed good-looking, I call her."

"I\'m glad you think so," said Harry, drily.

"Let\'s see; where was it you picked her up? I did hear, but I forget."

"I picked her up, as you call it, at Stratton, where her father lives."

"Oh, yes; I know. He\'s the fellow that coached you in your new business, isn\'t he? By-the-by, Harry, I think you\'ve made a mess of it in changing your line. I\'d have stuck to my governor\'s shop if I\'d been you. You\'d got through all the d——d fag of it, and there\'s the living that has always belonged to a Clavering."

"What would your brother have said if I had asked him to give it to me?"

"He wouldn\'t have given it of course. Nobody does give anything to anybody now-a-days. Livings are a sort of thing that people buy. But you\'d have got it under favourable circumstances."

"The fact is, Archie, I\'m not very fond of the church, as a profession."

"I should have thought it easy work. Look at your father. He keeps a curate and doesn\'t take any trouble himself. Upon my word, if I\'d known as much then as I do now, I\'d have had a shy for it myself. Hugh couldn\'t have refused it to me."

"But Hugh can\'t give it while his uncle holds it."

"That would have been against me to be sure, and your governor\'s life is pretty nearly as good as mine. I shouldn\'t have liked waiting; so I suppose it\'s as well as it is."

There may perhaps have been other reasons why Archie Clavering\'s regrets that he did not take holy orders were needless. He had never succeeded in learning anything that any master had ever attempted to teach him, although he had shown considerable aptitude in picking up acquirements for which no regular masters are appointed. He knew the fathers and mothers,—sires and dams I ought perhaps to say,—and grandfathers and grandmothers, and so back for some generations, of all the horses of note living in his day. He knew also the circumstances of all races,—what horses would run at them, and at what ages, what were the stakes, the periods of running, and the special interests of each affair. But not, on that account, should it be thought that the turf had been profitable to him. That it might become profitable at some future time, was possible; but Captain Archibald Clavering had not yet reached the profitable stage in the career of a betting man, though perhaps he was beginning to qualify himself for it. He was not bad-looking, though his face was unprepossessing to a judge of character. He was slight and well made, about five feet nine in height, with light brown hair, which had already left the top of his head bald, with slight whiskers, and a well-formed moustache. But the peculiarity of his face was in his eyes. His eyebrows were light-coloured and very slight, and this was made more apparent by the skin above the eyes, which was loose and hung down over the outside corners of them, giving him a look of cunning which was disagreeable. He seemed always to be speculating, counting up the odds, and calculating whether anything could be done with the events then present before him. And he was always ready to make a bet, being ever provided with a book for that purpose. He would take the odds that the sun did not rise on the morrow, and would either win the bet or wrangle in the losing of it. He would wrangle, but would do so noiselessly, never on such occasions damaging his cause by a loud voice. He was now about thirty-three years of age, and was two years younger than the baronet. Sir Hugh was not a gambler like his brother, but I do not know that he was therefore a more estimable man. He was greedy and anxious to increase his store, never willing to lose that which he possessed, fond of pleasure, but very careful of himself in the enjoyment of it, handsome, every inch an English gentleman in appearance, and therefore popular with men and women of his own class who were not near enough to him to know him well, given to but few words, proud of his name, and rank, and place, well versed in the business of the world, a match for most men in money matters, not ignorant, though he rarely opened a book, selfish, and utterly regardless of the feelings of all those with whom he came in contact. Such were Sir Hugh Clavering and his brother the captain.

Sir Hugh took Florence in to dinner, and when the soup had been eaten made an attempt to talk to her. "How long have you been here, Miss Burton?"

"Nearly a week," said Florence.

"Ah;—you came to the wedding; I was sorry I couldn\'t be here. It went off very well, I suppose?"

"Very well indeed, I think."

"They\'re tiresome things in general,—weddings. Don\'t you think so?"

"Oh dear, no,—except that some person one loves is always being taken away."

"You\'ll be the next person to be taken away yourself, I suppose?"

"I must be the next person at home, because I am the last that is left. All my sisters are married."

"And how many are there?"

"There are five married."

"Good heavens—five!"

"And they are all married to men in the same profession as Harry."

"Quite a family affair," said Sir Hugh. Harry, who was sitting on the other side of Florence, heard this, and would have preferred that Florence should have said nothing about her sisters. "Why, Harry," said the baronet, "if you will go into partnership with your father-in-law and all your brothers-in-law you could stand against the world."

"You might add my four brothers," said Florence, who saw no shame in the fact that they were all engaged in the same business.

"Good heaven!" exclaimed Sir Hugh, and after that he did not say much more to Florence.

The rector had taken Lady Clavering in to dinner, and they two did manage to carry on between them some conversation respecting the parish affairs. Lady Clavering was not active among the poor,—nor was the rector himself, and perhaps neither of them knew how little the other did; but they could talk Clavering talk, and the parson was willing to take for granted his neighbour\'s good will to make herself agreeable. But Mrs. Clavering, who sat between Sir Hugh and Archie, had a very bad time of it. Sir Hugh spoke to her once during the dinner, saying that he hoped she was satisfied with her daughter\'s marriage; but even this he said in a tone that seemed to imply that any such satisfaction must rest on very poor grounds. "Thoroughly satisfied," said Mrs. Clavering, drawing herself up and looking very unlike the usual Mrs. Clavering of the rectory. After that there was no further conversation between her and Sir Hugh. "The worst of him to me is always this," she said that evening to her husband, "that he puts me so much out of conceit with myself. If I were with him long I should begin to find myself the most disagreeable woman in England!" "Then pray don\'t be with him long," said the rector.

But Archie made conversation throughout dinner, and added greatly to Mrs. Clavering\'s troubles by doing so. There was nothing in common between them, but still Archie went on laboriously with his work. It was a duty which he recognized, and at which he would work hard. When he had used up Mary\'s marriage, a subject which he economized carefully, so that he brought it down to the roast saddle of mutton, he began upon Harry\'s match. When was it to be? Where were they to live? Was there any money? What manner of people were the Burtons? Perhaps he might get over it? This he whispered very lowly, and it was the question next in sequence to that about the money. When, in answer to this, Mrs. Clavering with considerable energy declared that anything of that kind would be a misfortune of which there seemed to be no chance whatever, he recovered himself as he thought very skilfully. "Oh, yes; of course; that\'s just what I meant;—a doosed nice girl I think her;—a doosed nice girl, all round." Archie\'s questions were very laborious to his fellow-labourer in his conversation because he never allowed one of them to pass without an answer. He always recognized the fact that he was working hard on behalf of society, and, as he used to say himself, that he had no idea of pulling all the coach up the hill by his own shoulders. Whenever therefore he had made his effort he waited for his companion\'s, looking closely into her face, cunningly driving her on, so that she also should pull her share of the coach. Before dinner was over Mrs. Clavering found the hill to be very steep, and the coach to be very heavy. "I\'ll bet you seven to one," said he,—and this was his parting speech as Mrs. Clavering rose up at Lady Clavering\'s nod,—"I\'ll bet you seven to one, that the whole box and dice of them are married before me,—or at any rate as soon; and I don\'t mean to remain single much longer, I can tell you." The "box and dice of them" was supposed to comprise Harry, Florence, Fanny, and Lady Ongar, of all of whom mention had been made, and that saving clause,—"at any rate as soon,"—was cunningly put in, as it had occurred to Archie that he perhaps might be married on the same day as one of those other persons. But Mrs. Clavering was not compelled either to accept or reject the bet, as she was already moving before the terms had been fully explained to her.

Lady Clavering as she went out of the room stopped a moment behind Harry\'s chair and whispered a word to him. "I want to speak to you before you go to-night." Then she passed on.

"What\'s that Hermione was saying?" asked Sir Hugh, when he had shut the door.

"She only told me that she wanted to speak to me."

"She has always got some cursed secret," said Sir Hugh. "If there is anything I hate, it\'s a secret." Now this was hardly fair, for Sir Hugh was a man very secret in his own affairs, never telling his wife anything about them. He kept two banker\'s accounts so that no banker\'s clerk might know how he stood as regarded ready money, and hardly treated even his lawyer with confidence.

He did not move from his own chair, so that, after dinner, his uncle was not next to him. The places left by the ladies were not closed up, and the table was very uncomfortable.

"I see they\'re going to have another week after this with the Pytchley," said Sir Hugh to his brother.

"I suppose they will,—or ten days. Things ain\'t very early this year."

"I think I shall go down. It\'s never any use trying to hunt here after the middle of March."

"You\'re rather short of foxes, are you not?" said the rector, making an attempt to join the conversation.

"Upon my word I don\'t know anything about it," said Sir Hugh.

"There are foxes at Clavering," said Archie, recommencing his duty. "The hounds will be here on Saturday, and I\'ll bet three to one I find a fox before twelve o\'clock, or, say, half-past twelve,—that is, if they\'ll draw punctually and let me do as I like with the pack. I\'ll bet a guinea we find, and a guinea we run, and a guinea we kill; that is, you know, if they\'ll really look for a fox."

The rector had been willing to fall into a little hunting talk for the sake of society, but he was not prepared to go the length that Archie proposed to take him, and therefore the subject dropped.

"At any rate I shan\'t stay here after to-morrow," said Sir Hugh, still addressing himself to his brother. "Pass the wine, will you, Harry; that is, if your father is drinking any."

"No more wine for me," said the rector, almost angrily.

"Liberty Hall," said Sir Hugh; "everybody does as they like about that. I mean to have another bottle of claret. Archie, ring the bell, will you?" Captain Clavering, though he was further from the bell than his elder brother, got up and did as he was bid. The claret came, and was drunk almost in silence. The rector, though he had a high opinion of the cellar of the great house, would take none of the new bottle, because he was angry. Harry filled his glass, and attempted to say something. Sir Hugh answered him by a monosyllable, and Archie offered to bet him two to one that he was wrong.

"I\'ll go into the drawing-room," said the rector, getting up.

"All right," said Sir Hugh; "you\'ll find coffee there, I daresay. Has your father given up wine?" he asked, as soon as the door was closed.

"Not that I know of," said Harry.

"He used to take as good a whack as any man I know. The bishop hasn\'t put his embargo on that as well as the hunting, I hope?" To this Harry made no answer.

"He\'s in the blues, I think," said Archie. "Is there anything the matter with him, Harry?"

"Nothing as far as I know."

"If I were left at Clavering all the year, with nothing to do, as he is, I think I should drink a good deal of wine," said Sir Hugh. "I don\'t know what it is,—something in the air, I suppose,—but everybody always seems to me to be dreadfully dull here. You ain\'t taking any wine either. Don\'t stop here out of............