There is an air of bustle and expectancy within-doors that betokens coming guests; the servants are moving to and fro noiselessly but busily, and now and then the stately housekeeper passes from room to room uttering commands and injunctions to the maids as she goes.  No less occupied and anxious is the butler, as he surveys the work of the footmen.  It is so long since the old place has had a resident master, and so much longer still since guests have been invited to it, that the household are more than ordinarily excited at the change now about to take place.

Sir Adrian Dynecourt, after a prolonged tour on the Continent and lingering visits to the East, has at last come home with the avowed intention of becoming a staid country gentleman, and of settling down to the cultivation of turnips, the breeding of prize oxen, and the determination to be the M.F.H. when old Lord Dartree shall have fulfilled his declared intention of retiring in his favor.  He is a tall young man, lithe and active.  His skin, though naturally fair, is bronzed by foreign travel.  His hair is a light brown, cut very close to his head.  His eyes are large, clear, and honest, and of a peculiarly dark violet; they are beautiful eyes, winning and sweet, and steady in their glance.  His mouth, shaded by a drooping fair mustache, is large and firm, yet very prone to laughter.

It is quite the end of the London season, and Sir Adrian has hurried down from town to give directions for the reception of some people whom he has invited to stay with him during the slaughter of the partridges.

Now all is complete, and the last train from London being due half an hour ago Sir Adrian is standing on the steps of his hall-door anxiously awaiting some of his guests.

There is even a touch of genuine impatience in his manner, which could hardly be attributed to the ordinary longing of a young man to see a few of his friends.  Sir Adrian’s anxiety is open and undisguised, and there is a little frown upon his brow.  Presently his face brightens as be hears the roll of carriage-wheels.  When the carriage turns the corner of the drive, and the horses are pulled up at the hall door, Sir Adrian sees a fair face at the window that puts to flight all the fears he has been harboring for the last half hour.

“You have come?” he says delightedly, running down the steps and opening the carriage door himself.  “I am so glad!  I began to think the train had run away with you, or that the horses had bolted.”

“Such a journey as it has been!” exclaims a voice not belonging to the face that had looked from the carriage at Sir Adrian.  “It has been tiresome to the last degree.  I really don’t know when I felt so fatigued!”

A little woman, small and fair, steps languidly to the ground as she says this, and glances pathetically at her host.  She is beautifully “got up,” both in dress and complexion, and at a first glance appears almost girlish.  Laying her hand in Sir Adrian’s, she lets it rest there, as though glad to be at her journey’s end, conveying at the same time by a gentle pressure of her taper fingers the fact that she is even more glad that the end of her journey has brought her to him.  She looks up at him with her red lips drooping as if tired, and with a bewildered expression in her pretty blue eyes that adds to the charm of her face.