pleased i should only have laughed at him but now now that i had been of the greatest love which ever shone upon my life i was reluctant to my hold of the hearts which remained to me and prince was the link to the happy past but and mrs de la had already left the room followed by and lord and squire was standing beside me holding a large arm just on a level with my shoulder cherry s child the arrangement of the table placed me between mrs and squire and exactly opposite to prince who had miss de la on his left i only looked at him once just after the soup had been served and then he was bending down to hear some remark of miss de la s and never saw me not that i wanted him to see me on miss de la s other hand was lord de who would i fancy infinitely have preferred being anywhere else too appeared rather dissatisfied but when he saw me looking his way he smiled and so seemed happier after this i devoted myself almost entirely to my dinner partly because i had so little to me from it for mr de la s appetite was about as hearty as the clasp of his hand and the conversation with which he entertained me between the courses was of a description hardly calculated to entertain me at all i knew nothing of english sport and he promptly told me that the roman hunt was very tame and compared with english fox hunting i knew nothing at all about short horns or fat pigs and as to crops � why i should not have known t other from which when i saw them growing he informed me that his of york the third had won the first prize at the royal agricultural show last year i imagined the of york was a cow but was not very clear and he gave me no time to ask also that his pigs were a perfect picture and that if a day or two of good soft rain would come it would do an immense amount of good to the crops it was all dutch to me and i was bored to apparently prince was not bored as i was for i do not quite understand the liquid murmur of his voice scarcely ceased until mrs and mrs de la rose to leave the room i followed in the wake of miss de la and did not look at him i rather dreaded the time which must before the men came into the drawing room for i was of what us had said to me earlier in the day and moreover i had no inclination whatever to talk to her however she followed me to the window seat and settled herself in the comer opposite to mine how nice it must be to live here instead of in a stupid square like ours she remarked graciously yes it is very pleasant here i answered and then you will be going down to royal directly she continued it is a lovely old place so every one tells me i replied i am rather curious to see an english country house i never did you know i suppose not how strange it must be to come back to your own country and find everything quite strange to you i and yet it must be rather a pleasant sensation too if you do not happen to dislike your first impressions oh i did not do that i said my father did not care for england himself but i find it and its people more pleasant than i expected i always thought they were cold and dull the english that is the general idea of them on the continent oh foreigners are so impulsive she returned a little though to be sure no typical englishman could be colder than prince cold i echoed do you think so i cannot say i find him so myself but in general society he is considered remarkably so you know his cherry s child wife was an english woman and they say that he was so unhappy in his marriage that he has vowed never to marry an woman again the whole story was so that i burst out laughing at which she looked politely surprised just then the door opened and the gentlemen came in followed by charles and james bringing coffee that miss de la had no intention of remaining any longer in my out of the way comer was soon evident for she shivered slightly and glanced round at the open window i think i had better move she remarked quite i feel the draught a little i will close the window if it you i answered on no account pray she said rising hastily then she moved away into the centre of the room but none of the men seemed inclined to avail themselves of the vacant seat left on her sofa came in my direction but unfortunately was by mr de la who held him fast not with his glittering eye but with his very substantial hand lord took refuge with mrs and prince after a moment s hesitation crossed the room to me may i sit here he said almost humbly if you like i answered but no more and taking my coffee from charles as i spoke when the man had passed on he said in a low tone � what is the matter i do not know i replied i asked you the same question before dinner and you said nothing but you did not say it in any too polite a manner prince i ended was i rude he asked in a tone of real surprise it i do not quite understand i thought so i answered without raising my eyes from my cup and i thought you unkind too 