There were archery meetings at this time through the country, the period of the year being unfitted for other sports.  It seemed to Caldigate as though all the bows and all the arrows had been kept specially for him,—­as though he was the great toxophilite of the age,—­whereas no man could have cared less for the amusement than he.  He was carried here and was carried there; and then there was a great gathering in their own park at home.  But it always came to pass that he and Julia were shooting together,—­as though it were necessary that she should teach him,—­that she should make up by her dexterity for what was lost by his awkwardness,—­that she by her peculiar sweetness should reconcile him to his new employment.  Before the week was over, there was a feeling among all the dependants at Babington, and among many of the neighbours, that everything was settled, and that Miss Julia was to be the new mistress of Folking.

Caldigate knew that it was so.  He perceived the growth of the feeling from day to day.  He could not say that he would not go to the meetings, all of which had been arranged beforehand.  Nor could he refuse to stand up beside his cousin Julia and shoot his arrows directly after she had shot hers.  Nor could he refrain from acknowledging that though she was awkward in a drawing-room, she was a buxom young woman dressed in green with a feather in her hat and a bow in her hand; and then she could always shoot her arrows straight into the bull’s-eye.  But he was well aware that the new hat had been bought specially for him, and that the sharpest arrow from her quiver was intended to be lodged in his heart.  He was quite determined that any such shooting as that should be unsuccessful.

‘Has he said anything?’ the mother asked the daughter.  ‘Not a word.’  This occurred on the Sunday night.  He had reached Babington on the previous Tuesday, and was to go to Folking on next Tuesday.  ’Not a word.’  The reply was made in a tone almost of anger.  Julia did believe that her cousin had been engaged to her, and that she actually had a right to him, now that he had come back, no longer ruined.

‘Some men never do,’ said Aunt Polly, not wishing to encourage her daughter’s anger just at present.  ’Some men are never left alone with a girl for half a moment, but what they are talking stuff and nonsense.  Others never seem to think about it in the least.  But whether it’s the one or whether it’s the other, it makes no difference afterwards.  He never had much talk of that kind.  I’ll just say a word to him, Julia.’

The saying of the word was put off till late on Sunday evening.  Sunday was rather a trying day at Babington.  If hunting, shooting, fishing, croquet, lawn-billiards, bow and arrows, battledore and shuttle-cock, with every other game, as games come up and go, constitute a worldly kind of life, the Babingtons were worldly.  There surely never was a family in which any kind of work was so wholly out of the question, and every