Nell of Shorne Mills

The next morning, while at breakfast, he received a little note from

Lady Angleford, asking him to dinner that night. It was a charming

little note, as pleading and deprecating as her eyes had been when she

looked at him at the Northgates'.

Drake sent back word that he would be delighted to come, and at eight

o'clock presented himself at his uncle's house in Park Lane. Lord

Angleford was, like Northgate, detained in London by official business.

He was a very fine specimen of the old kind of Tory, and, though well

advanced in years, still extremely good-looking--the whole family was

favored in that way--and remarkably well preserved. His hair was white,

but his eyes were bright and his cheeks ruddy, and, when free from the

gout, he was as active as a young man. Of course, he was hot-tempered;

all gouty men are; but he was as charming in his way as Lady Angleford,

and extremely popular in the House of Lords, and out of it.

Though he had fallen in love with a pretty little American, perhaps he

would not have married her but for the little tiff with Drake; but that

little tiff had just turned the scale, and, though he had taken the step

in a moment of pique, he had not regretted it; for he was very fond and

proud of his wife. But he was also very fond and proud of Drake, and was

extremely pleased when Lady Angleford had told him that she had met

Drake, and was going to ask him to dinner.

"Oh, all right," he had said. "I shall be very glad to see him--though

he's an obstinate young mule. I think you'll like him."

"I do like him very much indeed," she had said. "He is so handsome--how

very like he is to you!--and he's not a bit stand-offish and superior,

like most Englishmen."

"Oh, Drake's not a bad sort of fellow," said Lord Angleford, "but he's

too fond of having his own way."

At this Lady Angleford had smiled; for she knew another member of the

family who liked his own way.

She was waiting for Drake in the drawing-room, and gave him both her

hands with a little impulsiveness which touched Drake.

"I am so glad you have come," she said; "and your uncle is very glad,

too. You won't--get to arguing, will you? You English are such dreadful

people to argue. And I think he has a slight attack of the gout, though

he was quite angry when I hinted at it this morning."