



Produced by Al Haines





BELLES AND RINGERS


BY

HAWLEY SMART,


AUTHOR OF

"BOUND TO WIN;" "FALSE CARDS;" "TWO KISSES;" "COURTSHIP," ETC.




NEW EDITION.




LEVER BROTHERS, LTD.,

PORT SUNLIGHT, NEAR BIRKENHEAD.




CONTENTS.


CHAPTER I.

TODBOROUGH GRANGE


CHAPTER II.

THE CONSPIRATORS TRIUMPH


CHAPTER III.

THE COMMONSTONE BALL


CHAPTER IV.

THE ROCKCLIFFE GAMES


CHAPTER V.

AN EXCURSION TO TROTBURY


CHAPTER VI.

A SHORT CUT HOME


CHAPTER VII.

"THE PLAY'S THE THING!"


CHAPTER VIII.

MRS. WRIOTHESLEY


CHAPTER IX.

SATURDAY AT HURLINGHAM


CHAPTER X.

MRS. WRIOTHESLEY'S LITTLE DINNER


CHAPTER XI.

THE RINGING OF THE BELLES




BELLES AND RINGERS.


CHAPTER I.

TODBOROUGH GRANGE.

Todborough Grange, the seat of Cedric Bloxam, Justice of the Peace, and
whilom High Sheriff for East Fernshire, lies low.  The original Bloxam,
like the majority of our ancestors, had apparently a great dislike to
an exposed situation; and either a supreme contempt for the science of
sanitation, or a confused idea that water could be induced to run
uphill, and so, not bothering his head on the subject of drainage, as
indeed no one did in those days, he built his house in a hole, holding,
I presume, that the hills were as good to look up at as the valleys to
look down upon.  It was an irregular pile of gabled red brick, of what
could be only described as the composite order,