Front matter (continued 2)

"From what I remember of your brother he was quite good-looking--fair, wasn't he? You are not in the least like him."

"No, indeed, more's the pity," Lallie said simply. "He is the image of Dad. You've met my father, I think, Miss Foster?"

"I believe your father stayed a night here some time last winter, but I don't remember him very distinctly. We see so many parents, you know, and it's hard to keep them separate in one's mind unless they have very definite qualities, or are distinguished people."

"Most people think Dad is very distinguished," said Lallie, much incensed at the implied slight upon her father; "but I suppose he appeals most to brilliant people like himself. May I have my work-bag, Miss Foster? I think you are sitting on it, and I may as well get on with Tony's tie as sit here doing nothing. Thank you; I hope no needle has run into you."

Silence fell upon the twain: a fighting silence, charged with unrest.

Dinner that night was not exactly a hilarious meal. Mr. Johns still smarted under a sense of injury at the trick he considered Lallie had played him. He held her responsible for his collision with Miss Foster, and he came to table determined not to address a single word to her till she should apologise. All the time he was mentally rehearsing that apology and the form it should take. In some solitude--place not yet specified--she would ask him what she had done to offend him. Reluctantly he would allow her to drag from him the real cause of his aloofness, and through the veil of his reticence she would perceive the enormity of her offence--veils have an enlarging effect. Being really good at heart and full of generous impulses--he was certain of Lallie's generosity--she would frankly apologise, and he would, as frankly, refuse to allow her to do so. Mr. Johns saw himself, muscular, large, and magnanimous, in the very flower of his young English manhood--gently and imperceptibly raising little Lallie's moral tone until her soul should reach the altitude upon which it could meet his on equal terms. After that, who knows what might happen? And it was dinner time.

At table, however, he couldn't harden his heart against Lallie, who sat opposite in a high white blouse that made her look like a schoolgirl. Her eyelids were pink; so was her nose with its confiding tip; and she never once looked across at Mr. Johns.

Miss Foster would discuss the dates of various quarantines, and the preventative measures that should be taken if any of the usual infectious diseases invaded the other houses. Tony tried in vain to head her off to other topics. By the time they had reached the contagious, or non-contagious nature of tonsilitis, Lallie began to look about her. From time to time she caught Tony's eyes, and her own were so merry and well amused that Tony, himself, began to see another side to the germ question, which as a rule bored him to extinction. Mr. Johns found himself trying to intercept some of Lallie's glances, but without success; and when the meal came to an end he had assuredly not addressed a single remark to Lallie, but it was from lack of opportunity and not because he was any longer offended. How could one be offended with an irresponsible creature whose dimples were so bewitching?

Tony retired to his study; Mr. Johns went back to the boys; and Lallie, who longed to go with Tony but didn't dare, meekly followed Miss Foster into the drawing-room. Tony was troubled about Lallie. The child look pinched and low-spirited, he thought, and she was such a good child. She had tried so hard, so kind-hearted Tony assured himself, to fall in with their ways, to keep rules and regulations that were all strange to her. He wished he could have her in here with him, but he supposed it wouldn't do; Miss Foster might be offended. She was such a quiet little mouse--it was pleasant to work by the fire with her leaning against his knees, with one of those everlasting ties in her hands. By Jove! it was a cold night; he'd light his fire. Poor little Lallie! would Miss Foster be friendly and motherly? He hoped to goodness she wouldn't talk any more about illnesses; he felt rather as though he were going to have mumps himself. Tony pressed his neck on both sides anxiously. The wood sparkled and crackled, he drew his chair up to the fire and lit his pipe.

"You must excuse me, Miss Clonmell," said Miss Foster, when they reached the drawing-room; "I have many things to see to upstairs. In a house like this it is impossible to devote one's whole evening to social intercourse. I fear I must leave you for half an hour or so."

"Of course," Lallie said solemnly, not quite knowing why. "Please, Miss Foster, would it disturb any of the children--the boys, I mean--if I play the piano while you're gone?"

"The boys' part of the house is quite separate; you may disturb Mr. Bevan, who is usually busy at this time--but----"

"Oh, I shan't disturb Tony; he'll probably leave his door open to hear me; he loves music."

"He has not, hitherto, made any parade of his partiality," Miss Foster said coldly, and left the room, shutting the door carefully after her.

Lallie flew across to the door and opened it wide, gazing after Miss Foster's portly form ascending the staircase.

"In a house like 'this,'" said Lallie to herself, and made a face, "St. Bridget herself would lose patience, and I very much fear there's more than a spice of the devil in me. Anyway, I'm not going to freeze for twenty Miss Fosters; I'll get a cloak to cover me."

She ran upstairs and reappeared clad in a wonderful theatre coat of rose-coloured satin, embroidered in silver, a most incongruous garment considering the severe simplicity of her frock, but it appeared to give her great satisfaction; and again leaving the door wide open she seated herself "with an air" at the piano, and began to sing.

It was surprising that so small and slight a creature as Lallie could have such a big voice--a rich, carrying mezzo soprano voice; the sort of voice usually associated with the full-bosomed, substantially built women that one encounters on concert platforms or in grand opera.

Portali, the great singing-master in Paris to whom her father had taken her when she was seventeen, explained it thus:

"She sings as a bird sings, but she would never make a public singer. She hasn't the physique, she hasn't the industry; above all, she hasn't the temperament; but she can sing now as no amount of training could ever make her. Give her good lessons--occasionally--but only the best; never let any provincial teacher come near her. If she ever has a bad illness she'll probably lose her voice altogether, but if she only sings for pleasure--for her own, and yours, and that of the fortunate people thrown with her, never as a business--she may keep it till she is quite an old woman. Let her choose her own songs--Folk songs are what she can sing--but let her sing what she pleases; she will never go wrong. Let her keep her wild-bird voice; don't try to tame or train it too much."

Lallie began to sing very softly "Synnove's Lied"--the andante that is sung as if humming to one's self; then suddenly she let her voice go. "Oh to remember the happy hours!" Right through the house it rang, passionate, pathetic, pleading.

Tony leapt to his feet and opened his study door; at the same instant he heard some one prop open the swing door that shut off the study passage from his part of the house, and down the long corridor every door was opened.

"Our world was bounded by the garden trees,

Then came the churchyard and the river."

The big, beautiful voice died down, and once more came the quaint humming refrain. Again--musical, intensely melancholy--the voice rang out.

"But now the garden is white with snow,

At night I wait, I stand and shiver,"

sang Lallie most realistically, for the drawing-room really was rather cold.

"The place is frosty, the cold winds blow,

Oh love, my love, but you come never."

Lallie sang in English, for she could not speak Norwegian, and every word was clearly enunciated and distinct; the soft humming refrain followed, and died away into silence.

"Heavens!" thought Tony, "the child is homesick alone in there with Miss Foster; she sounds cold too--this is dreadful!"

He hurried to the drawing-room, expecting to find Lallie in the tearful state her pathetic voice had indicated.

"I thought that would bring you," Lallie remarked complacently. "Come here, Tony, and admire my theatre coat Dad brought me from Paris."

Tony stood where he was, staring at the gorgeous little figure seated perkily on the piano stool; at the big cheerless room, with one electric light burning in dismal prominence over the piano; at the black and chilly hearth.

"Why in the name of all that's idiotic haven't you got a fire?" he asked angrily.

"In this house," Lallie replied, in Miss Foster's very tones, "we never have fires till the first of October."

Poor Tony looked very miserable.

"I am so sorry," he said helplessly; "you'd better come and sit in my study. I have a fire."

"It's I who ought to be sorry, Tony, worrying you like this. It was horrid of me to tell tales. No, I won't come and sit in your study, for that would only make her hate me the more. I'm not a bit cold in my beautiful coat, and I'll go on making music quite happily. Run away back to your little exercise books."

"Try not to take a dislike to Miss Foster at the very first, Lallie," Tony pleaded. "She's a good sort really; and perhaps I ought to have written to tell her you had come."

"It would have been better to break it to her gently," Lallie responded drily.

Tony crossed the room slowly, pausing on the threshold.

"I fear I must ask you to keep the door shut; the boys heard you singing, and instantly every study door was opened."

"Ah, the dears!" cried Lallie delighted. "Do let me have them all in, and I'll sing them something they'd really like."

Tony shook his head.

"They must do their work, and I must do mine. Mind, you are to come into the study if you are cold."

As Tony crossed the hall even the shut door could not drown the cheerful strains of that most jubilant of jigs, "Rory O'More," and he felt a wild impulse to dance a pas seul there and then. However, he sternly fastened the swing door, shut himself into his study, and tried to forget the brilliant little rose-and-silver figure with the wistful Greuze face. Over his mantel-piece hung an engraving of "La cruche cassée," bought some years ago because of its likeness to Lallie. He shook his head at it now, turned his back upon it, and sat down at his table. Val, who liked music, went to the door and whined to get out, but Tony unsympathetically bade him get into his basket again, and gave his own attention to the bundles of white paper that Lallie had impertinently dubbed "little exercise books."

When Miss Foster returned Lallie was singing "All round my hat I will wear a green garland," and accompanying herself upon the harp. She finished the song and then went and sat beside Miss Foster on the sofa.

"You have a very strong voice, Miss Clonmell," Miss Foster remarked, gazing with astonished disfavour at the rose-and-silver garment.

"So I've always been told," said Lallie. "You see it has never been strained."

"Did you say trained or strained?"

Lallie laughed.

"Oh, it's plenty of training it's had, but perhaps I haven't profited as much as I might have done. Are you fond of music, Miss Foster?"

"I can't say that I am. I dislike every sort of loud music, and all stringed instruments seem to me so very thrummy."

To this Lallie made no reply, but took her roll of lace out of her bag and began to work in perfect silence. Miss Foster picked up the Spectator and tried to read it, but could not concentrate her attention. Against her will she was forced to glance from time to time at the quiet figure beside her; at the deft white hands that moved so swiftly and silently; at the beautiful work that grew so fast beneath their ministrations. Like Tony, Lallie's silence irritated her. If only the girl had chattered she would have had a grievance.

"You were out with Mrs. Wentworth this afternoon, I think you said?" Miss Foster remarked at last.

"Yes, Miss Foster; she took me to see Pris and Prue at their dancing. Oh, it was lovely! Pris is just like a big soft india-rubber ball, and bounds up and down in perfect time, and looks the incarnation of gleeful enjoyment. And then Mrs. Wentworth insisted on my going back to tea with her, for they were arranging about the Musical Society, and she thought I might help. The organist is a nice man! That's how it was I couldn't be here to welcome you."

"The practises are a great nuisance," Miss Foster said. "The boys have so much to do, it really is not fair to make them practise in their scanty playtime."

"But music's good for them," argued Lallie; "and it's not a mental strain."

"Of that I am by no means sure. If you will excuse me, Miss Clonmell, I think I will retire, for I've had rather a tiring day."

Miss Foster rose, Lallie folded her work neatly and put it in her bag. She went and shut the piano and came back and shook hands with her hostess.

"Good-night, Miss Foster. I may be a minute after you, for I promised Mr. Bevan I'd go and say good-night to him in the study;" and before Miss Foster could recover from her amazement at this audacious statement Lallie had vanished.

"She's worse than anything I ever dreamt of," poor Miss Foster lamented to herself; "and I fear she's a fixture for the present; anyway, we shall see."

CHAPTER VIII

As Lallie was late for breakfast Tony only saw her for a few minutes before he had to go to College. He did not get back to the house again till nearly lunch time, when he met her at the front door, radiant, smiling, her arms full of books.

"See, Tony!" she exclaimed joyously. "I've been into the town--such a pretty town it is too, with a band playing in the promenade and all. And I found a library, and I've paid my subscription for three months; three volumes at a time; and I've chosen three books, and here they are!"

Tony followed her into the hall and Lallie held up the books, backs outwards, for his inspection.

"How did you choose them?" he asked.

"Well, I chose this one because there was such a pretty lady in the front, and I liked the cover. And I chose this one because I've read other books by the same author, and liked them. And I chose this one because the very nice lady at the library pressed it upon me and said it was 'being very much read.'

"Only one good reason, Lallie, out of the three. I'm afraid that pretty cover, with the pretty lady inside, is misleading. I, in my character of chaperon----"

"As Uncle Emileen, you mean, Tony?"

"Exactly so. I, in my character of Uncle Emileen, must veto that one, though I haven't read it myself. I'm pretty sure your father wouldn't like it."

"I'm quite sure he wouldn't, if you say so. He's awfully particular, is Dad; but he's particular in a funny sort of way. He'll let me read things that would make the hair of the entire Emileen family stand straight on end--if only they are sincere and well written; and then again, he falls foul of wishy-washy novels that Aunt Emileen would consider quite harmless."

"I don't think he would consider this either well-written or sincere, so you'd better give it to me."

"Dad says 'tis women mostly who write the dirty books--what a pity! But I think he must be wrong, don't you, Tony?"

Tony shook his head mournfully.

"A great pity," he repeated.

"I expect they do it just for the fun of shocking people. I like doing that myself."

"I've no doubt of it. All the same, I hope you'll choose some other method of scandalising society; and you'd better hand that particular volume over to me."

"And here have I walked all the way up from the town, fondly clasping that pernicious volume--Aunt Emileen's phrase, not mine--and lots of people stared hard at me, and I thought it was my nice new hat they were admiring. Here, take it, Tony, and you can come with me to return it, and then they'll think I got it for you, you old sinner."

Tony glanced nervously around lest there should be any eavesdropper to hear him called an "old sinner"; but the doors were all shut and the hall empty.

"Certainly I'll come with you to-morrow; I couldn't possibly come to-day, I was so busy. Why are you always in such a hurry, Lallie? I subscribe to that library; no one ever gets out any books except Miss Foster; and there you go paying another subscription. What waste! And why did you go by yourself?"

"And who was there to go with, pray? P--Mr. Johns was in College. You were in College. I don't know where Mrs. Wentworth was, but anyway I didn't meet her."

"What about Miss Foster?"

"Miss Foster went out while I was practising, and when she came in, I went out. Sort of 'Box and Cox,' you know."

"Try and go with Miss Foster to-morrow, Lallie, it would be so much better."

Lallie had already started to go upstairs; she paused about six steps up and leant over the banisters to look at Tony, exclaiming reproachfully:

"But you promised you'd go with me yourself to-morrow!"

"So I will, but other days--remember."

Lallie went up three more steps, and again paused and looked down.

"For a dear, kind, nice, middle-aged man, Tony, you're rather obtuse," she said. And with this cryptic speech she ran up the whole flight of stairs and vanished from his sight.

What could the child mean?

Lallie had made up her mind overnight that she would not bother Tony with any complaints about Miss Foster, so she did not tell him that directly after breakfast that lady had suggested to her that she should practise "while I am out of the house." Nor had Miss Foster made any suggestion that Lallie should accompany her during her morning's shopping. When Miss Foster came in, Lallie went out; and having in the meantime come to the conclusion that she must find amusement for herself and in no way depend upon her hostess, she found her way into the town and to the library.

By the end of a week Miss Foster had made it abundantly clear to every one concerned, except the busy and optimistic master of the house, that she felt no desire whatever for the society of Lallie Clonmell.

By mutual consent they kept out of each other's way as far as was possible. Miss Foster took every opportunity of letting Lallie see that she had no intention of acting the part of Aunt Emileen towards her; and whatever Tony might be, Lallie was not obtuse. Subtly, but none the less unmistakably, did Miss Foster impress upon her that to be the chaperon of stray young ladies did not come within the scope of the duties which she had undertaken to fulfil at B. House. She never offered to take the girl anywhere except to chapel or to the football field, where it was practically impossible that they should go separately. Moreover, Miss Foster considered it a real grievance that during the services in chapel, Lallie persisted in singing psalms, canticles, and hymns with her usual brio and enthusiasm; and the wonderfully sweet, full voice caused many upward glances at the gallery reserved for the masters' families.

Lallie had philosophically determined to make the best of a difficult situation; but like that friend of Dr. Johnson, who "would have been a philosopher but that cheerfulness kept breaking in," so, in her case, cheerfulness made extraordinarily frequent irruptions in the shape of the older boys and younger masters to an extent that sometimes threatened to be indecorously hilarious.

Not once had Miss Foster invited Lallie to accompany her when she went shopping in the morning. In fact, her daily suggestion after breakfast that her guest should "get her practising over before lunch" had become a sort of ritual. Thus it came about that Lallie took to going out by herself between twelve and one, the fashionable hour for promenading in Hamchester; and invariably her steps were bent towards the very promenade she had so admired on her first visit to the library.

Tony, who generally played fives or coached football teams after morning school until lunch time, was under the impression that she was safe in Miss Foster's care; nor had he the remotest idea that Fitzroy Clonmell's cherished only daughter, who had never in her life before walked unattended in the streets of a town, tripped off alone every morning to sun herself in the famous Hamchester promenade, where the band plays daily and the idle and well-dressed inhabitants walk up and down, gossip, or flirt as best pleases them.

The promenade at Hamchester is a long, straight street; very wide, possessed of a really fine avenue of trees, with shops on one side, and on the other public gardens and a terrace of tall Georgian dwelling-houses. The library made an excellent object for Lallie's daily walk, and if she reached the promenade unattended, she was not long permitted to stroll along in mournful solitude. Before she had been three weeks in Hamchester she knew every prefect in the whole alphabet of College houses, and for prefects, the promenade was not out of bounds.

The gallant Cripps, no longer in quarantine, often found his way thither, to the despair of the fives-playing community. Berry, head prefect of B. House, had strained a muscle in his shoulder, and was off games for the time being, and he also fell in with Lallie with surprising frequency; and if it so happened that no boys she knew were "down town" between twelve and one, "young Nick" was almost certain to fly into town on a bicycle, which he recklessly left outside a shop while he walked up and down, and discussed the Celtic Renaissance or more frivolous topics with this sweet-voiced, frank, and friendly Irish maid.

From the very beginning Mrs. Wentworth had done her best for Lallie in the way of asking her to lunch and to tea, but she had a houseful of visitors during the girl's first weeks under Tony Bevan's roof, and had really very little time for outsiders. She had gauged pretty accurately Miss Foster's mental attitude towards Lallie; but when Miss Foster declared to her that she "accepted no responsibility whatever with regard to Miss Clonmell," little Mrs. Wentworth thought that this was only "Miss Foster's way"; and never dreamt that the lady could or would evade a relationship towards her young guest that seemed natural and inevitable.

Therefore it came upon Mrs. Wentworth with quite a shock when three mornings running in succession, while doing the ever-necessary shopping, she came upon Lallie leisurely strolling up and down the promenade, a tall youth on either side of her, all three manifestly with no sort of object in their stroll except the society of one another; and wherever Lallie was, "cheerfulness kept breaking in": in this case the attendant swains laughed with a heartiness and vigour that caused most passers-by to regard the trio attentively. Small and upright; clad in an admirably fitting suit of Lincoln green--she was very fond of green--with trim short skirt that liberally displayed her slim ankles and very pretty feet, she would have been noticeable even without her hilarious escort; and Mrs. Wentworth, whose motherliness in no way stopped short at Pris and Prue, acted promptly and without hesitation.

From the steps of a shop she watched the gay green figure and attendant swains pass, walk to the end of the avenue, turn and come back again, when Mrs. Wentworth descended into the arena and met Lallie face to face.

"Lallie, how fortunate! You are the very person I most wanted at this moment. How do you do, Mr. Berry! I hope your shoulder is less painful? Good morning, Mr. Cripps. Lallie, do come with me and help me to choose linen for the children's smocks. You have such a good eye for colour."

Lallie dismissed her companions with a cheerfully decided "Don't wait for me, either of you; I'll be ages. And I want to walk home with Mrs. Wentworth."

The two ladies vanished into a shop, and Cripps and Berry were left outside, looking rather foolish and disconsolate.

"D'you think she cut in on purpose?" asked Cripps.

"Highly probable," said Berry. "I thought this sort of game was a bit too hot to last. I confess I've often wondered Germs or old Bruiser didn't put a stop to it." "Germs" was Miss Foster's nickname amongst the boys.

"Germs hates her; any one can see that."

"All the more reason for her to interfere on every possible occasion, I should have thought."

"My dear chap," said Berry in superior tones, "you only perceive the obvious. I confess I can't make out Germs. She's anxious enough to interfere as a rule, but about Miss Clonmell, I'm hanged if I can see what she's playing at. It's a deep game, anyhow. She'd give her eyes to get rid of her; I'd stake my oath on that. Poor little girl! It must be jolly dull shut up all day with old Germs. However, we'll continue to do our best for her, anyhow."

"I jolly well shall," said Cripps, and he said it with the air of one who registers a solemn vow.

Mrs. Wentworth and Lallie chose the linen for the smocks: light blue, the colour of her eyes, for Pris, dark blue for Prue; and Lallie's favourite green for Punch. She insisted on being allowed to make the one for Punch herself, and was so keenly interested and absorbed by the whole affair that Mrs. Wentworth found it very hard to broach the subject she had most at heart. The girl was so frankly affectionate, so manifestly delighted to be with her friend again, that the kindly lady suffered pangs of self-reproach that she had not made time somehow to see more of her. In considering young people generally, Mrs. Wentworth was in the habit of saying to herself, "Suppose it were Pris or Prue"; and it was marvellous how lenient in her judgment this supposition always made her.

As they left the town behind them and reached the quiet road leading to B. House, she took the bull by the horns, saying:

"Lallie, dear, do you think your father would like you to walk up and down the promenade all alone at the very busiest time?"

"But I'm hardly ever alone, dear Mrs. Wentworth. I may say never. I always meet one or two of the boys or somebody, and we walk up and down together."

Lallie so evidently considered her explanation entirely satisfactory, and turned a face of such guileless innocence and affection towards her mentor, that Mrs. Wentworth found it difficult to go on with her sermon. However, she steeled her heart and continued:

"That's just it, my dear; I fear he wouldn't like it at all."

"Not like me walking with the boys? Oh, you're really quite wrong there; he meant me to be friends with the boys, that's why he sent me to Tony. He thinks all the world of the boys, and I agree with him; such a dear nice set they are. Don't you think so yourself, Mrs. Wentworth?"

"I do, I do, indeed," Mrs. Wentworth heartily assented; "but--the promenade of a large town is not quite the proper place for you to meet the boys, and I am sure that there your father would agree with me."

"Would you rather I walked with them in the country roads? I'm quite willing. I'm by no means wedded to the promenade. The trombone in the band played rather out of tune to-day, and it jarred me dreadfully. We'll go into the country next time."

"No, no, that wouldn't do at all. Lallie, I'm afraid--I'm very much afraid--that you oughtn't to walk about with the boys at all unless I or Miss Foster or Mr. Bevan can be with you."

"Dear Mrs. Wentworth, would you rather I went about with the young masters?" Lallie asked sweetly. "They've really got more time, and I like them nearly as well. I'll tell one of them to come country walks with me if you prefer it."

"Certainly not," Mrs. Wentworth said decidedly. "You mustn't do that on any account----"

"Then where am I to walk?" Lallie interrupted piteously. "Round and round the College field? And it's often so wet. I must get some exercise."

"Of course you must," Mrs. Wentworth concurred heartily. "You must come out with me; and sometimes, perhaps, you'll take out the children: they love you so dearly. But what you must not do--I really mean it--is to walk up and down that promenade as you were doing to-day"--Mrs. Wentworth said nothing about the other days--"because, rightly, or wrongly, the nicest girls here don't do it; and as you are so very nice I can't let you. Lallie I don't want to be interfering and tiresome, but don't you think it would look better--it would at all events be natural and right as you are both in the same house--if you sometimes went about with Miss Foster?"

Lallie sighed deeply.

"I was in quarantine when I came," she said, "and it seems to me that I've never got rid of the infection. But I'll try to do as you say, for you're a dear darling and I love you; but it seems to me that unless I can hire an aeroplane and go up alone in that, I'm certain to meet somebody, and they always turn and go back with me."

CHAPTER IX

Miss Foster really was a much-tried woman. Just as she had settled comfortably into her groove, just as she had got the domestic arrangements in B. House to run on oiled wheels exactly in the direction she desired, just as the whole household had learnt that her will was law and her methods the only possible methods, there came this girl--this most upsetting, disorganising, disturbing girl: a girl as impossible to ignore as to coerce; a girl whose all-pervading presence was made manifest in every corner of the house.

Miss Foster was above all things orderly. She made a fetish of tidiness, and her drawing-room was its temple. She had arranged it entirely to her own liking, and the furniture was as the fixed stars in the fabric of the firmament. It really pained and distressed her should a fidgeting guest move a chair ever so little out of its own proper orbit, and she quite longed for such an one to depart that she might promptly push the errant piece of furniture back into its original position. In her eyes the drawing-room was perfect, incapable of improvement, and any alteration therein must of necessity be for the worse.

Imagine her feelings then when she came back to find a grand piano and a harp added to its effects! Even this she might have borne had the harp remained quietly in some inconspicuous corner; but it proved a restless and ubiquitous instrument, and she never knew where she might find it next.

Lallie could not move it herself, and she would ring for one of the maids to help her; and once moved would leave it where it was, even though three chairs and a sofa had been displaced to make room for it. Before her arrival the drawing-room had never been used in the morning unless for the reception of some lunching parent. The fire had been lit at two precisely, and up to three o'clock Miss Foster rarely entered the room unless to arrange the two vases of flowers that always graced the mantelpiece. Miss Foster was of the opinion that there was something irregular, Bohemian, almost disreputable, in using a drawing-room for any other purpose than that of receiving friends; and it seemed to her to emphasise the unpleasant fact of Lallie's Irish origin, that now the girl invaded this sacred room directly after breakfast, and that the fire was lit before by Tony Bevan's orders.

Lallie practised there, sewed there, even cut things out there upon the gate table that hitherto had never been unfolded except for afternoon tea.

She would leave her green silk work-bag hanging on the backs of chairs or slung carelessly upon any excrescence that happened to be handy, such as the bell or the knob of a Chippendale tallboys. She left books about on unaccustomed tables, and had been known to fling the newspaper outspread and sprawling, loose and flagrant, upon the Chesterfield that stood in stately comfort at a convenient distance from the hearth.

Everywhere there were traces of Lallie. When she sewed, and she was always sewing if she wasn't knitting, she dropped bits of thread and snippets of material upon the carpet, sometimes even pins.

A large old-fashioned footstool was placed in the very centre of the hearthrug right against the tall brass fender. Miss Foster liked it there, and it had never been moved or even used except when some unusually bold boy would sit thereon and warm his back when he came to tea. Lallie was for ever moving that stool. Nearly all the chairs in the drawing-room were rather high, and she liked a footstool. It never occurred to her that the footstool was to be considered in any other light than as a footstool, and she dragged it about to whatsoever chair she wanted to sit in, sometimes curling up the edge of the hearthrug in her course.

"A footstool by the hearth so prim,

An oaken footstool was to him

And it was nothing more"--

Only in this case the him was a her, which made such insensibility even more unpardonable in Miss Foster's eyes.

"Why do you always move the footstool, Miss Clonmell?" she asked one day.

"Because the chairs are so tall and my legs are so short," Lallie answered.

"The chairs are of the usual height. Chairs are not nowadays manufactured for pigmies," Miss Foster said severely.

"Did they use to be?" Lallie demanded with interest.

"No one has ever complained of the chairs in this house before," Miss Foster continued, ignoring Lallie's question.

"I never complained of them, Miss Foster. They're very nice chairs as chairs go: a bit straight and stiff, perhaps, but quite endurable if one has a footstool. Tony has comfortable chairs in his room. I wonder how men always manage to get such comfortable chairs? It's the same at home; Dad has always the best of the chairs in his den, though I must say we have a good many that are pretty decent."

"The hearth does look so naked without that stool," Miss Foster lamented.

"I'll try to remember to put it back when I've done with it," Lallie said, with undiminished sweetness; "but I'm not very good at putting things back."

"That I have already observed, Miss Clonmell, and it is a pity. No untidy person has ever achieved real greatness."

"Are you sure, Miss Foster? That's rather a sweeping assertion."

"I believe it to be a fact," Miss Foster replied coldly, "although it is quite possible you may be able to bring forward one or two examples to the contrary."

"I'm trying to think of all the lives of great men that ever I've read, and I can't remember if it said they were tidy or not. I've an idea some of them were not. Goldsmith now----"

"Goldsmith was Irish," Miss Foster interrupted.

"So was Wellington; so's Lord Roberts."

Miss Foster, without being at all sure of her facts, longed to point out that orderliness was a striking characteristic of both these heroes, but the fact of their nationality deterred her.

"I fear," Lallie went on, "that Shakespeare must have had a niggly sort of mind in some ways in spite of his genius, because he left his wife the second-best bed. If he'd been an ordinary, careless, good-natured kind of man he'd never have remembered to specify which bed. Perhaps, though"--and here Lallie spoke more cheerfully, as though she suddenly perceived a rift in this cloud resting upon Shakespeare's memory--"it was his wife who was so tiresome and finnicky, always pestering him about not using the best things, so he left her the second-best bed as a punishment."

Miss Foster made no reply, but opened the Spectator with a flourish and held it up in front of her as a screen.

"Don't you think that is possible, Miss Foster?" Lallie persisted.

"I must refuse to discuss any such absurd contingency. I have already told you that I believe disorderly personal habits to be incompatible with true greatness of character."

Lallie sighed deeply.

"It sounds like a police court case," she said sadly. "'Lallie Clonmell, having no visible means of subsistence, and giving no address, was yesterday arrested as being of "disorderly personal habits."' Well, Tony would come and bail me out if the worst came to the worst. And yet I'm considered very tidy and managing at home; quite a sort of Mrs. Shakespeare, in fact. Everything depends on environment."

Miss Foster made no answer. Literally and figuratively she had wrapped herself up in the Spectator.

But the harp, the piano, the bits of cotton dropped on the floor were mere venial offences compared to the sin of making dirty footmarks upon the stair carpet.

The front staircase at B. House is imposing, wide, and Y-shaped. The first broad flight of steps starts from the centre of the large square hall. Half way up it branches into two, terminating at opposite ends of the landing upon which open the chief bedrooms, and the assistant-master's sitting-room. It is a handsome staircase of polished oak--no other house in Hamchester College has one half so fine--and it was at that time carpeted with a particularly soft and thick, self-coloured, art-blue carpet that matched the walls.

When the master of the house found how conspicuous were muddy or dirty footmarks on this same carpet, and how such defacement distressed Miss Foster who had chosen it, he always used the boys' staircase whenever he went to his room to change. So did Mr. Johns. Till Lallie came no one save Miss Foster ever used the front staircase at all, and she was most careful never to ascend by it if her boots were either muddy or dusty. She therefore saw no reason why Lallie should not show equal forethought, especially as there was no chance of her guest meeting any of the boys on the back staircase, as they were never allowed to go up to the dormitories during the day.

Alas! Lallie showed no disposition to consider the welfare of the carpet, but ran lightly up to her room by the front stairs no matter how dirty her boots, and she often left the clear impression of a small sole on every step.

The third time this occurred Miss Foster met her just outside her bedroom door, and remarked with some acerbity:

"Haven't you discovered the other staircase yet, Miss Clonmell? It really is the shortest way to your room."

"I like these stairs best, thank you. I'm not used to wooden stairs; my feet make such a patter it disturbs me."

"But look at the marks your feet have made on the carpet," Miss Foster expostulated indignantly.

Lallie went to the top of the stairs and looked down.

"They're very little marks," she said consolingly. "My worst enemy couldn't say I've big feet."

"Quite large enough to make ugly and distressing stains when the feet happen to be muddy. Don't you see how every mark shows on that plain carpet?"

"Yes, it must be tiresome," Lallie said coolly, as though she and the footmarks had nothing whatever to do with one another. "It's a pity Tony went and chose a colour like that where people have always to be going up and down, but it's just like a man not to think of these things."

Miss Foster was really angry.

"There is no necessity for any one to go up and down with dirty feet, Miss Clonmell."

Lallie's cheeks flushed pink, and the eyes that met Miss Foster's were bright with defiance as she said softly and distinctly:

"When Mr. Bevan asks me to use the back staircase I'll do it; so far, he has not so much as suggested it," and with her head in the air Lallie marched across the landing to her room and shut the door very quietly, with ostentatious care that it should latch effectively.

It was a declaration of war, and, as such, Miss Foster received it.

That evening Miss Foster unbosomed herself in a letter to her favourite niece--the niece whose wedding she had attended when Lallie, as she described it, "sneaked in" during her absence.

"That girl's presence becomes more and more irksome every day, and I really do feel that her prolonged stay is likely to be a serious menace to the peace of B. House. You know how undesirable and unwholesome it is for manly boys to have anything whatever to do with girls of that sort, the sort that is always polite and pleasant, making them think far too much of themselves. It isn't exactly what she says that one can object to, though any conversation I have overheard is always extremely foolish, but she has a way of looking up under her eyelashes--I do dislike very thick black eyelashes in a grown-up person, they give such a made-up look to the face--that is most objectionable. She is not a pretty girl, quite pale and insignificant, and so small; but as I say she flatters men, and young and old they all seem perfectly silly about her, and therefore she is a most dangerous and disturbing influence. It is particularly trying for me, for the tone of B. House has always been so high ever since I came here; and I cannot but feel that this girl has imported an atmosphere of noisy frivolity and insubordination that must lead to moral deterioration. So far I have not discovered anything with regard to the boys that one can exactly complain of, but I have no doubt whatever that she is sly and underhand. The Irish are proverbially untrustworthy, and she seems to me to embody all the worst characteristics of that stormy and unreliable race.

"People here make a great fuss about her singing and playing, but I never was an admirer of loud voices, and particularly dislike her theatrical and affected way of singing. 'Dramatic' they call it, but to my thinking it is simply unladylike! I have no patience with people who can work themselves up into a state about nothing at all. I can appreciate a good concert now and then as much as anybody; but to have constant shouting and thrumming going on in my drawing-room is a very real trial. It's not only herself, but other people come to sing duets and practise their songs. Young masters who never entered the house before come now and bawl for hours, because they say she is such a beautiful accompanist. They come to flirt with her, that's what they come for; and dear, innocent Mr. Bevan never seems to see it. It is extraordinary how blind men are to the wiles of a designing girl.

"As you may imagine a girl of any sort is rather a white elephant in a house like this, but had she been a nice, sensible, ordinary girl, with no nonsense about her, I would have managed. As it is, I don't know what may happen. Goodness knows how many other instruments she can play. I always enter the drawing-room in fear and trembling lest a drum and a trombone be added to the existing collection.

"Mrs. Wentworth has chosen to make a great fuss of her, and she, in her turn, makes a great fuss of the children. As you know I am not one of those who go about raving over Mrs. Wentworth. I could not truckle like some of them to that commonplace little woman. I am surprised that Dr. Wentworth has not himself suggested the desirability of Miss Clonmell's departure before this. But men are curious. They will let an abuse continue till it becomes absolutely intolerable rather than interfere with one another. It has struck me again and again since I came here how procrastinating men are, how extremely unwilling to speak the word in season. Well, I intend to do my part, cost what it may; my vigilance shall be untiring; and when I find, as I have no doubt I shall find, that that girl has overstepped the limits of propriety I shall go straight to Mr. Bevan with the facts. Then he cannot refuse to act firmly in the interest of the House. So far we have been free from any infectious disease. If only the other houses were as carefully disinfected and watched as this one, such illnesses might be stamped out altogether. Yet whenever I suggest my methods to those in charge of other houses I receive but scant sympathy or even thanks."

CHAPTER X

Meanwhile, Tony was daily getting more and more used to Lallie's presence. The pleasant, almost exciting sense of novelty had worn off, giving place to a still pleasanter feeling of familiar security.

She would be there when he got back, this girl with the soft full voice and delightful welcoming manner, and he found himself watching the clock like the laziest boy in his form during the last hour of afternoon school.

For years past, although he lived in a crowd and possessed troops of friends, he had been rather a lonely man, and his loneliness was accentuated rather than lessened when he came into possession of B. House.

"Truly you may call it a 'house,'" he said to a congratulating college friend. "It's far less of a home than my old diggings. I don't feel as though a single stick of the furniture really belongs to me except my old arm-chair and my desk."

Now, however, he thought more fondly of B. House; particularly of his study, where he knew that he would find a bright fire, the little tea-table drawn up beside his chair, and the brass kettle singing merrily over the spirit lamp. Not that these things were new. There had always been tea laid for him in his study when he came in at half-past five; but now it was Lallie who made the tea, not Ford, and Lallie made excellent tea. Moreover, she always had a great deal to ask and to tell. She took the deepest interest in all College matters, and absolutely declined to regard anything from a tutorial standpoint; and this in itself was restful and refreshing to Tony.

To her, Tony Bevan was above all the old friend tried by time; "the best of good sorts," "the decentest old thing." That he happened also to be a schoolmaster was perhaps unfortunate, but she generously declined to let this regrettable fact influence her attitude towards him.

She knew well that he wanted her above all things to be happy, and with him she always was happy. Furthermore she had loyally kept her resolution not to worry Tony with any knowledge of the friction that existed between herself and Miss Foster. He was not much at B. House, and being of a good-natured and tolerant disposition himself, he always gave other people credit for being similarly well disposed until he had ample proof to the contrary. Besides, in his presence Lallie and Miss Foster almost unconsciously adopted a manner towards one another that was at least free from signs of open hostility.

When Lallie had been a week at B. House she took her host's personal appearance firmly in hand. In the morning she flew after him to brush his coat before he went up to College. She exclaimed indignantly at the "bagsomeness" of his trouser knees. Finding that he did not possess any form of trouser-press she insisted on his going with her into the town to buy one. And when it was sent home, she folded the offending garments and placed them in it herself. She objected to ties that looked "like a worn-out garter," and said so. She even suggested that certain old and well-loved coats might be sent to the Mission, but here Tony was firm in his opposition. He would buy a new suit to please her, but part with his old coats he would not; and Lallie was far too diplomatic to press the matter.

She tried always to be at home to make tea for him when he came in at half-past five, and cut short many a tea-party to keep this tryst. She was in great demand at other houses, especially the houses where the heads were musical.

She was waiting for Tony on the evening of the footprint encounter with Miss Foster, and when she had fed and warmed and cosseted him generally she sat down in the big chair opposite his and faced him squarely, announcing:

"Hunting begins this week, Tony."

"Does it really? How the year is getting on."

"Tony, dear, don't you think I might hunt if I took out one of the men from the riding school as groom--just one day a week?"

Tony shook his head.

"If your father had wanted you to hunt I am sure he would have suggested it, and he would probably have made arrangements for you to have a couple of the horses over; but he has never so much as mentioned it, and I can't let you do it on my own responsibility. I don't believe he'd like it for you here either. It isn't as if I could go with you."

"Much good you'd be if you could go with me. You know, Tony, you are not at your best across a horse. As for Dad not having made arrangements--this Indian trip was got up and settled in such a tremendous hurry, he had no time to think about me at all. Listen to me now! How would you feel if when they began to mow the grass in May, and the good smell was in the air, and you saw all the others in their flannels, and heard all round you the nice deep ring of the cricket balls--and you mightn't play a stroke, and your arm as strong and your eye as true as ever it was. How would you like it?"

"I shouldn't like it at all; but----"

"Well, then, think of me. The smell of the wet dead leaves and the south wind blowing the soft rain against my face is just as full of association for me. And I never go out but I see long strings of horses in their nice new clothing, the dear darlings! And me, ME, that has gone hunting on the opening day ever since I could sit a fat little Shetland pony, ME to stay pokily at home! Tony, I simply can't! You must let me."

"Lallie, the two cases are not analogous. You can go out riding whenever you like, provided you take a man; but hunting, no. Not without your father's permission. Especially here, you are too young--too----"

"Too what? You can't say I'm timid. You can't say I couldn't ride any mount they choose to give me at that old school. Look here, Tony, suppose they said, 'You may play cricket--oh, yes, at the nets with a wee little junior boy to bowl to you; but no matches, no playing with people who play as well as you do'--would you say 'Thank you'? And that's precisely what you offer me. Let me tell you I ride just as well as you play cricket--blue and all; and to please you I've even gone pounding round that ridiculous racecourse with half a dozen other girls who sit a horse like a sack of potatoes, who'd be off at every bounce but for the pommel. D'you think I call that riding? Oh, Tony, dear, if I could just have one good gallop across country after the hounds, I'd be a better girl--much nicer and easier to get on with."

"I don't find you particularly hard to get on with as it is."

"Other people do, though"--Lallie's conscience pricked her as to Miss Foster--"and I dare say I'm often a great nuisance; but once let me work the steam off on the back of a good horse and I'd be an angel. Just you let me go out with the hounds on Thursday and you'll see."

"Lallie, my child, don't. I would if I could, but I simply dare not. Your father would never forgive me. It was quite different last winter when he was there himself to look after you."

"My dear, good man, a hunting field isn't like the 'croc' of a girls' school. No one can 'look after' anybody else. You either ride straight or you potter, or you rush your fences and get in people's way. But whatever you do you're on your own. If you come a bad smash there's always a hurdle to lay you on, and a doctor and a farmhouse somewhere about. If you think Dad kept me in his pocket three days a week throughout the hunting season all these years, you've a more fertile imagination than I gave you credit for, and Dad would be the first to disillusion you. We went to the meets together, and after that we saw precious little of one another."

"What about riding home?"

"Hardly ever did we come home together. Sometimes he got home first, sometimes I did; and whichever of us was first in got the bath, and the other was pretty sure to come pounding at the door before the early bird was out of it. You can't chaperon people out hunting. Why, by the time I'd been out three times here, I'd know the whole field, and you'd be perfectly happy knowing I was among friends."

Lallie sat forward in her chair gazing eagerly at Tony, who said nothing at all; but from the expression of his face it might have been gathered that this prediction of her speedy intimacy with all the field gave him no satisfaction whatever.

"Well, Tony?" she demanded impatiently.

"I'm sorry, but it's impossible. You can write to Fitz if you like and ask him to cable his opinion."

"No, indeed. I'll write and tell him that unless he cables forbidding me, I'm going to hunt. Dad will always do the easiest thing, and I know will never bother to cable forbidding me to do a thing I've done for years."

Lallie's voice was almost defiant, and poor Tony looked very pained, but he said nothing; and after a minute's silence she continued in a more conciliatory tone:

"Then in a fortnight's time from next mail if I don't hear, I may hunt?"

"You must give him three weeks, for he may be up country, and his mail takes days to reach him after the agent gets it."

"And by that time there'll be a frost; I didn't think it of you, Tony, I really didn't. In this matter you out-Emileen Aunt Emileen herself."

Tony rose.

"You have my leave to depart," he said, opening the door for her; "I've a lot of letters to write, and those chaps are coming to bridge after dinner, so I must do them now."

"Well, I think you're horrid, and if a slate falls on my head and kills me when I'm out walking, just you reflect how nice and safe I'd have been if I'd had my own way and been out in the open country."

"I'll risk the slate," Tony remarked unfeelingly; but still he would not look at Lallie, who stood in the doorway gazing reproachfully at him.

"And you're going to play bridge and have a nice time while I sit solemnly in the drawing-room making a waistcoat for you, ungrateful man. You've never asked me to take a hand, and I play quite well."

"You see, this is a club; we meet at each other's houses--there are no ladies----"

"Of all the monastical establishments I've ever come across this is the strictest, and you call Ireland a priest-ridden country."

"Lallie, I must write my letters."

At that moment Mr. Johns came into the hall, bearing a large and heavy book.

"Well, you deny me everything that keeps me out of mischief--on your own head be it," said Lallie rapidly, in low tones of ominous menace. Then, turning to the newcomer, she smiled a radiant welcome, exclaiming joyously: "You've brought your snapshots to show me! How kind of you! I'm badly in need of something to cheer me up. Come into the drawing-room, for Mr. Bevan is busy and Miss Foster's out, so we'll have it all to ourselves."

With quite unnecessary violence Mr. Bevan rang the bell for Ford to take away tea. Yet, when Ford, looking rather aggrieved, had responded to his noisy summons and removed the tea-things with her customary quiet deftness, he did not sit down at once to deal with his correspondence. Instead, he went and stood in front of the fire staring at the Greuze girl who was so like Lallie.

He ran his fingers through his smooth thick hair--a sure sign of mental perturbation with Tony--and he made the discovery that he was furiously angry; not with Lallie, the wilful and inconsequent, but with the unoffending Mr. Johns.

"Confound the fellow and his snapshots!" thought Tony; "if there's one kind of hobby more detestable than another it's that of the ardent amateur photographer. A man given up to it is almost as bad as the chap who wears cotton-wool in his ears, and is always taking medicine. There were these two" (with the second-sight vouchsafed to most of us upon occasion, Tony was perfectly correct in his surmise) "sitting side by side on the sofa with their heads close together, and that great heavy book spread out on their joint knees. Heavens! he would be proposing to snapshot Lallie next" (which is precisely what Mr. Johns was doing at that moment). "He, Tony, would not have it. He would interfere, he would--" Suddenly, exclaiming aloud, "What an ass I am!" he sat down at his desk with the firm determination to attend to his letters. He drew a neatly docketed bundle towards him, and selected the top one. It was that of Uridge Major's father, who wrote pointing out what a steadying effect it would have upon the boy were he made a prefect that term. Tony dealt diplomatically with this, but instead of going methodically through the bundle as he had fully intended to do he drew from his pocket a letter he had received from Fitzroy Clonmell last mail. It consisted of two closely written sheets; the first mainly descriptive of the sport they were enjoying, and duly concluded with the pious hope that his daughter was behaving herself. This was manifestly intended to be shown to Lallie. It was the second sheet that Tony read and re-read when he ought to have been allaying the misgivings of anxious-minded parents.

"By the way," it ran, "if one Sidney Bargrave Ballinger should happen to call upon Lallie while she is with you, be decent to him, will you? He fell hopelessly in love with her at Fareham last winter, and followed us to Ireland for fishing in the spring, when he proposed and she refused him. Consequently she is unlikely ever to have mentioned his name. The frankest and most garrulous creature about all that concerns herself, she is extraordinarily reticent as to things concerning other people, especially if she thinks it might be in any way unpleasant for them to have their affairs discussed. They parted quite good friends, and I take it as not unlikely that she might be brought to reconsider her decision. You will probably think him a bit of a crock--old son of Anak that you are! So he is in some ways, but he is also quite a good sort, refined, kind-hearted, and a gentleman; a Trinity man, with somewhat scholarly tastes. I am sure he would make her a good and indulgent husband. Besides, he has an uncommonly nice place in Garsetshire, and about eight thousand a year. He came into this money quite recently through the death of an uncle, and having now a 'stake in the country' he feels, I suppose, that he ought to be a bit of a sportsman, and he does his best to achieve that character, although I don't believe he has a single sporting instinct in him. He broke his collar-bone the second time he came out hunting last season; but he hunted again the minute it was mended, and rode as queerly as ever. He followed us to Kerry for fishing in April, and flogged the stream all day without getting a single rise; but he contrived to see something of Lallie, which was what he came for.

"Should he appear in Hamchester I'd like to know how he strikes you. I'm so horribly afraid she may want to marry some impecunious soldier chap imported by Paddy, who will carry her off to a vile climate where she would assuredly go under in a year or two, that it would be a real comfort to me to see her safely married to a good fellow who could give her all the pleasures she most cares for and has been accustomed to; and even if he isn't a sportsman himself would not be averse from her fond father occasionally sharing in the same--but this is a very secondary consideration. A son-in-law will be such an incubus that nothing he can bring in his hand will mitigate the nuisance much.

"Perhaps he won't turn up at all, but if he does, don't cold-shoulder him--he has my blessing. Give him his chance. She'll follow her own line of country in any long run, but there's no harm in giving her an occasional lead in the most desirable direction. I wish he hadn't been called Sidney, it's a name I detest; still, we can call him by his middle name if it ever reaches the necessity for a familiar appellation.

"Salve atque vale.

"From yours.

"Fitz."

Tony knit his brows and pondered. Had Mr. Sidney Bargrave Ballinger already arrived? he wondered. Was that why Lallie was so ardently desirous of going out with the hounds on Thursday? No; he acquitted her of any form of stratagem. If she had seen the man she would have mentioned it. She always made a bee-line for anything she wanted, and intrigue was as foreign to her nature as mischief-making.

He was worried and irritable; he couldn't settle to his letters; and he felt quite unaccountably annoyed with Fitz for thus shifting the burden of responsibility from his own shoulders to Tony's. And Tony, being of a just and charitable temperament, took himself seriously to task for having instantaneously and irrevocably taken a violent dislike to the unseen and unknown Sidney Bargrave Ballinger.

CHAPTER XI

That evening Dr. and Mrs. Wentworth dined alone. This was quite an unusual occurrence, for their circle of friends was large and they were exceedingly hospitable. As there was nobody to entertain after dinner Mrs. Wentworth went and sat in her husband's study and "relaxed her mind over a book," while he wrote some of the innumerable and inevitable letters that fall to the lot of every headmaster. The answers to parental missives were generally submitted to Mrs. Wentworth's criticism, and she insisted upon his softening the asperities occasioned by their frequent ineptness. Dr. Wentworth did not suffer fools gladly, but his wife regarded such things from the maternal standpoint; consequently the headmaster of Hamchester got credit for a sympathetic attitude he by no means deserved.

At that moment he was dealing with the case of one Pinner, an extremely stupid boy of seventeen in a low form, whose mother wrote saying she would like him to begin at once to specialise with a view to entering the Indian Civil Service later on.

Suddenly Mrs. Wentworth laid down her book and sat listening.

"Isn't that one of the children?" she asked.

Dr. Wentworth, deep in the demolition of Pinner's prospects, did not answer.

"I'm sure it's one of the children," Mrs. Wentworth repeated, and hastened upstairs.

Dismal wails smote upon her ear as she neared the night nurseries, and she found Punch sitting up in bed flushed and tearful, and not to be pacified by his devoted nurse who was standing by his cot alternately soothing and remonstrating.

"Hush, Punch! you'll wake Pris and Prue in the next room. What is the matter? Did you have a bad dream? Were you frightened?"

"No," Punch proclaimed in a muffled sort of roar, "I'm not fitened, but I can't sleep because she won't sing Kevin. I can't mimember it and I can't sleep. Oh, do sing Kevin."

"I don't know what he means, mum," nurse exclaimed distractedly. "Is it a hymn, do you think?"

"No," bawled Punch indignantly; "t'int a hymn. Oh, do sing Kevin," he wailed, standing up in his cot with his arms round his mother's neck and his hot, tear-stained little face pressed against hers.

"But, Punch, dear, what is Kevin? Of course I'll sing it if you'll only explain."

"But you can't," lamented Punch; and inconsequent as inconsolable he reiterated, "Oh, do sing Kevin."

"But who can sing this song?" Mrs. Wentworth asked. "Where have you heard it?"

"Lallie singed it. Oh, do get Lallie. Lallie knows Kevin."

"I can't get Lallie to come and sing for you in the middle of the night. You mustn't be unreasonable. You must wait until next time you see her--perhaps to-morrow--then you can ask her to sing for you."

"T'int the miggle of the night," Punch retorted scornfully, "or you'd be wearing a nighty gown. Please, dear mudger, get Lallie, ven she'll sing Kevin and I'll go to sleep."

Mrs. Wentworth and the nurse exchanged glances across the cot.

"'Tis but a step across the playground to B. House," the nurse said in a low voice. "I know the young lady would pop over. He's been goin' on like this for over an hour."

Punch had ceased to wail; now he loosed his arms from about his mother's neck, sat back on his pillow, and looked from one to the other of the anxious faces on either side of him.

"He's such a obstinate boy," she murmured. "He'll never give up wanting it, and she can sing Kevin."

Mrs. Wentworth tried hard to look stern.

"Daddie wouldn't like it; and what would Lallie think to be fetched out at this time of night to sing to a tiresome little boy who ought to have been asleep hours ago."

Punch screwed up his face and prepared to wail again, but caught his breath and stopped in the middle of the first note to listen to his adoring nurse as she suggested in a whisper:

"I'll pop over for her, mum, and she'll be here directly. I'm quite worried about him. It seems to have got on his nerves; he's so feverish."

Mrs. Wentworth felt one of the hot little hands and stroked his damp hair back from his forehead. Punch stared unblinkingly at her, and repeated mournfully:

"He's fevish, very fevish; but," more hopefully, "he won't be if Lallie's feshed, 'cos then she'll sing Kevin."

"I know Daddie would disapprove," Mrs. Wentworth said weakly; "and, Nana, imagine what people will say. What will Miss Foster think?"

"I'm sure the young lady's not one to go talking," said Nana stoutly, "and she so fond of Master Punch and all. And he really has been frettin' something dreadful, and we none of us can sing that outlandish song; and you know how he keeps on, mum."

"Nobody knows it but Lallie," Punch repeated. "Lallie can sing Kevin. Oh, do sing Kevin."

Mrs. Wentworth nodded to the nurse, who departed hastily.

Punch sat on his pillow, wide-eyed and wakeful, with flushed round face and tired, unblinking eyes.

"Would you like to come and sit on my knee in the day nursery for a bit, Sonnie? Then perhaps you'll feel sleepy. I'll sing you anything you like."

"I'll come and sit on your knee till Lallie comes, then she'll sing Kevin. I don't want no other song."

"How do you know Lallie will come? She may be dining out; she may not be there."

"I fought you said it was the miggle of the night," Punch said sternly. "If it is she'll be back again."

"It is the middle of the night for little boys."

"But not for Lallie; I fink she'll come."

Mrs. Wentworth arrayed him in his blue dressing-gown and carried him into the big day nursery. She sat down in a low chair in front of the fire, with Punch warm and cuddlesome on her knee snuggled against her shoulder. He lay quite still in her arms, staring at the red glow through the bars of the high nursery fender.

"Do you think that little boys who wear beautiful pyjama suits just like their daddie's, ought to wake up and cry in the night?" Mrs. Wentworth inquired dreamily, her chin resting on the top of Punch's head, her eyes fixed on the fire.

"I fink I could sleep till Lallie comes," Punch announced in particularly wide-awake tones. "Hush!"

For nearly ten minutes they sat still and silent, then Punch suddenly gave a little wriggle and sat up on his mother's knee, stiff and expectant: every nerve tingling, every muscle taut.

"I fink I hear Lallie," he cried excitedly.

There was a swish and frou-frou of skirts in the passage outside as Lallie, followed by the triumphant Nana, came swiftly into the room. She flung her heavy cloak on a chair, and ran across and knelt by Mrs. Wentworth, exclaiming:

"How dear of you to send! I do so sympathise with Punch; I nearly go crazy if I half remember a tune and there's no way of getting the rest of it."

"T'int the chune; it's it all," said Punch magisterially. "Now you can sing Kevin."

"But do you know what he means?" Mrs. Wentworth asked.

"I should think I do. Oh, might I hold him? It's a longish song."

She was dressed in a little straight white silk dress embroidered with green, and her favourite green ribbon was threaded through her hair. Slender arms and neck were bare, and her cheeks flushed with her run across the playground in the cold air. She might have been Deirdre herself, product of sun and dew and woodland moss, so fresh and sparkling was she. Punch held out his arms to her.

"I knowed you'd come," he cried triumphantly; "an' you wouldn't be in bed, nor out, nor nuffin' like they said. I knowed you'd come."

Mrs. Wentworth gave Lallie her chair, and then Punch to cuddle, and forthwith Lallie burst into a rollicking tune and the legend:

"As Saint Kevin was a wanderin' by the shores of Glendalough,

He met one King O'Toole and he axed him for a schough;

Says the King, 'You are a sthranger and your face I've never seen,

But if you've got a bit of weed I'll lend you my dhudeen!"

To Punch the whole thing was vivid as an experience. He saw as in a vision the wind-swept shores of Glendalough. The only "lough" he had ever really seen was an ornamental lake in the town gardens, but Lallie had told him that King O'Toole's lough was a hundred times as big as that, so Punch pictured something very vast indeed. She had not explained what "schough" was and he had not asked, for he concluded it was some kind of bonfire from the context.

"As the Saint was lighting up the fire the monarch heaved a sigh.

'Is there anyt'ing the matter,' says the Saint, 'that makes you cry?'

Says the King, 'I had a ghander as was left me by my mother,

An' this mornin' he turned up his toes with some disase or other.'"

So Punch pictured a bonfire that crackled like those the gardner made with rubbish in the kitchen garden. The saint agrees to cure the ghander on condition that should the bird recover, he shall receive

"the bit o' land the ghander will fly round."

"'Faix I will and very welcome,' says the King, 'give what you ask,' and departs forthwith to the palace to fetch the "burd."

"So the Saint then tuk the ghander from the arrums of the King,

And first began to twig his beak and then to stretch his wing.

He cushed the bird into the air! he flew thirty miles around,

Says the Saint, 'I'll thank yer Majesty for that little thaste of ground!'"

But the king was in no mind to part with such a large slice of his property, and he called his "six big sons" to heave St. Kevin in a ditch.

"'Nabocklish,' says the saint, 'I'll soon finish them young urchins,' and he forthwith transformed King O'Toole and his sons into the Seven Churches of Glendalough.

Meanwhile Dr. Wentworth had finished his letter to Pinner's mother, and longed to read it to his wife, for he felt that the pill of truth was gilded with charity in quite angelic fashion, and he thirsted for her appreciation and applause. Minutes passed, and still she did not come. The house was very quiet and he felt sure she must have been mistaken about the children, and wondered what on earth she could be doing; then suddenly, into the silence, there floated a voice uplifted in most cheerful song: a melody that set the head nodding and the heels drumming.

Not for one instant did Dr. Wentworth even wonder as to the owner of the voice. No one who had heard Lallie sing once could fail to recognise her singing when he heard it again. The siren song drew him from his letters and up the stairs to the half-open door of the nursery, and there he stood watching the pretty picture by the fire.

Punch, majestic and satisfied at last, sat bolt upright on Lallie's knee. Her arms were round him; but she leant back in her chair that she might the better watch his serious baby face. Mrs. Wentworth and nurse stood on the other side of the hearth, both absorbed in adoring contemplation of the small figure in the blue dressing-gown. Neither of them saw the doctor, but Lallie did, and gave him a merry nod of greeting.

"An' if ye go there any day at the hour of one o'clock,

You'll see the ghander flyin' round the Lake of Glendalough."

The song ceased, and Punch turned himself to look earnestly in Lallie's face, demanding:

"Have you seen him?"

"Well, no, I can't say I have, but then I've never been there just at that time."

"Sing it again," Punch suggested sweetly.

"NO, NO, NO," Mrs. Wentworth cried sternly; "Punch must go to bed this instant."

"I said I would if she singed it, an' I will," said Punch. "Lallie can carry me."

"NO, NO, NO," said another voice, and Punch's father came into the room. "You're far too heavy for Miss Lallie, I'll take you; but I'd like to know what you mean by being awake at this hour, and how you manage to get young ladies to sing for you?"

"I came over," Lallie replied hastily; "I was lonely and he was awake, and worrying because no one could sing St. Kevin, so I sang it, and I have enjoyed myself so much, but I must fly back now. Good-night, you darling Punch."

Dr. Wentworth escorted Lallie back to B. House, and to this day does not know that she was "feshed." Neither did Miss Foster, for she was upstairs discussing the probability of an outbreak of chicken-pox with Matron when Lallie was "feshed"; and finding the drawing-room untenanted on her return, concluded that Lallie had gone to bed, and went herself in something of a huff. It was one thing for her to leave Lallie for the whole evening, but it was quite another matter for Lallie to retire without bidding her a ceremonious good-night. Lallie crept in at the side door--Ford had left it unbolted for her--and went upstairs by the back staircase.

Punch, warm and soft, with that indescribably delicious perfume of clean flannel and violet powder that pervades cherished infancy, had filled her heart with charity and loving-kindness towards all the world.

"I was a pig about the stairs," she said to herself; "I'll use these for the future. Perhaps if I try to be less tiresome she'll not dislike me so much. Oh, dear, why is it so easy to do what some people want? Now if Mrs. Wentworth asked me to climb up a ladder every time I went to my room I'd do it joyfully, and poor Miss Foster asks me to use a good wooden staircase when it's a dirty day and it seems utterly impossible to do it. I'll really try and be nice to her--but she won't let me. Never mind, I can but try."

CHAPTER XII

Next morning Lallie went into the town between twelve and one. She had a real and legitimate errand, inasmuch as she needed more silk for the waistcoat she was working for Tony.

Since Mrs. Wentworth's remonstrance she had never once walked down the promenade alone between twelve and one, and to-day she felt particularly virtuous and light-hearted. She would go straight to the shop, match the silk, and come home at once. "I'll walk up and down with nobody," she said to herself, "not even if the band's playing 'Carmen.'"

As it happened, the band was playing selections from "The Merry Widow" when she reached the shops, and she was not tempted to break her good resolutions, for she met no friends at all until she had bought her silks. "I'll go just to the bottom of the promenade and walk up again," she thought, "it's such a cheerful morning."

It was. The sun shone as it sometimes will shine at the beginning of the gloomiest month. The air was soft and humid, and though the roads were shocking the wide pavement of Hamchester promenade was clean. Lallie looked down anxiously at her shapely strong brown boots. No, they had not suffered; they were smart and trim, and did no shame to the well-hung short skirt above them. She squared her shoulders, held her head very high, and strolled along serene in the assurance that in all essentials she presented a creditable appearance. So evidently thought a young man coming up the promenade towards her.

He was a man of middle height, slight and fair, and wearing pince-nez; clean-shaven, with full prominent blue eyes, a large head, pinkish complexion, and an amiable, if weak, mouth. Admiring friends told him that he greatly resembled the poet Shelley, and he prided himself upon the likeness while in no way dressing to the part. He had an extremely long neck, which rather emphasised the fact that his shoulders were narrow and sloping. He wore a stock and was generally sporting in his attire, and his face and figure seemed curiously at variance with his clothes. In academic cap and gown his personality would have been congruous and even dignified, but clad as he was in a well-made tweed suit with riding-coat, and wearing upon his head a straight brimmed bowler, in spite of the fact that there was nothing exaggerated or outré in his garments he yet made upon the beholder a curious impression of artificiality, and seeing him for the first time one's first thought was, "Why does he dress like that?"

Immediately he caught sight of Lallie he hurried forward with outstretched hand and joy writ large upon his countenance.

"You, Miss Clonmell! What unspeakably good luck! I have been hoping to meet you for the last three days, and never caught a glimpse of you."

"How do you do, Mr. Ballinger?" Lallie said demurely, "and what brings you to these parts? Are you over for the day, or what?"

"I've come here for a bit. I'm going to hunt here for a month or two--all the season if I like it. I suppose you're coming out to-morrow?"

"Why aren't you hunting in your own country?" Lallie asked him reproachfully. "What has Fareham done that you should desert it? Do you suppose the hunting here is better?"

"I believe it's quite decent here, really; and I know a good many people, and I thought I'd like a bit of a change--and there are other reasons. Of course you're coming out with us to-morrow?"

Lallie shook her head.

"No, I'm not hunting--yet."

"Not hunting, Miss Clonmell! What on earth is the matter? Have you lost your nerve?"

"No," snapped Lallie, "but I've lost my horse. Dad's in India, as you know; the horses are in Ireland; and I'm staying with friends who don't hunt and won't let me hunt without them."

"Oh, but that's nonsense! Were you going this way--may I walk with you? I've got a little mare here that would carry you perfectly if you would honour me by riding her to-morrow. She has been ridden by a lady, and I believe she has excellent manners and is a good jumper. I'm putting up at the Harrow, the stables are so good. They're just at the back here. Won't you come round and look at the horses and see the little mare? It's not three minutes' walk."

Mr. Ballinger talked fast and eagerly, in short, jerky sentences, as though he were nervous.

"I'd love to see the horses," said Lallie, turning with him into the lane where the stables were, quite forgetful of her good resolutions to "walk with nobody."

"And if you like the look of the mare you'll come out to-morrow?"

"Ah, that's quite another matter. I don't think I can do that. Tony wouldn't like it."

"Why wouldn't Tony, whoever he is, like it?"

"Because he can't come with me."

"And why not?"

"Because he's shut up in school."

"Now really, Miss Clonmell, that is going too far. I know how you always spoil any boys you come across, but that you should give up a day's hunting because some wretched little schoolboy doesn't like you to go without him is absurd. Even you must see how ridiculous it is, and how bad for him. Let him attend to his work and mind his own business."

Mr. Ballinger spoke with considerable heat, and Lallie burst into delighted laughter, exclaiming:

"But he's not a little schoolboy that anybody could ignore, I assure you. Besides, I'm devoted to him."

"I have no doubt of it, but he wants putting in his place. Here are the stables."

Once among the horses, Lallie forgot everything except her delight in them; but not even the charms of Kitty, the mare, could make her promise to ride her the next day. So persistent was Mr. Ballinger, however, that to get rid of him she said she would send him a note that night should she happen to change her mind. He escorted her back to the very gate of B. House, and of course she met almost every one she knew in Hamchester while in his company.

She dismissed him at the gate, nor did she ask him in to lunch as she assuredly would have done had it been her father's house. She stood for a minute watching his somewhat slow and disappointed departure, gazing earnestly at his retreating back. Then she shook her head decidedly and went into the house.

Up the back stairs did she go in her honest desire to conciliate Miss Foster. One window on that staircase looks out on to the playground, and as she passed she caught sight of Cripps standing with two other prefects. The window was open and she looked out. All three boys looked up and capped her.

"The dears!" said Lallie to herself, and kissed her hand to them gaily as she passed.

At that very moment Miss Foster, followed by Mr. Johns, came through the swing-door at the top of the stairs. Miss Foster stopped short some four steps above Lallie, and of course Mr. Johns had to stop too, for he couldn't push past her, and to turn back would have looked odd.

"Miss Clonmell," said Miss Foster, in tones that could be heard to the farthest corner of the playground, "I really must protest against your corrupting the boys of this house by vulgar flirtation of that kind."

Lallie stood still in her turn, absolutely petrified by indignant astonishment.

Cripps crimsoned to the roots of his hair, caught each of his friends by the arm and hurried them indoors.

"How dare you speak to me like that?" Lallie gasped out; "and before the boys too? How dare you insult me so?"

"I shall continue to do what I consider my duty whether it be agreeable to you or not, Miss Clonmell, and I tell you again that I will not have these vulgar flirtations."

"It is you who put a vulgar interpretation on the simplest actions," Lallie exclaimed furiously, and with that she turned and ran down the stairs again and across the hall and out at the front door before Miss Foster fully realised that she was gone.

At Miss Foster's first words poor Mr. Johns had turned and fled upstairs again, through the swing door, and out to the landing from which he could look down into the hall, and he saw Lallie's swift and furious exit. Down the sacred front stairs he dashed and out into the drive after her, catching her just as she turned into the road.

As he joined her she lifted to him her white miserable face with tragic eyes all dark with grief and anger.

"I must walk and walk," she said breathlessly. "I am so angry; if I had stayed another minute I should have done that woman an injury. You heard what she said?"

"I quite understand," Mr. Johns said soothingly. "I hope you'll allow me to come with you. I won't talk."

"It's very nice of you, but really I'd be better alone."

"I think not," Mr. Johns said gently; "I hope you won't forbid me to come."

He looked so big, and kind, and honest, and withal so hopelessly uncomfortable, that Lallie's face softened and laughter crept back into her eyes.

"It's really very nice of you to want to come when I'm in such a bad temper. Let's go this way, where there's no people, and perhaps presently I'll feel better and we'll talk."

For nearly ten minutes Lallie pounded along in dead silence as fast as she could go. Then she began to notice that the pace which was rapidly reducing her to a state of breathless collapse had no sort of effect upon her companion, who, hands in his pockets, appeared to be strolling along in an easy sort of saunter at her side.

"This is ignominious," she exclaimed; "here am I walking as if for a wager, and you don't seem hurrying one bit."

"Am I walking too fast for you?" Mr. Johns asked, in poignant self reproach. "I am so sorry; you see, I don't often walk with ladies."

"It isn't you at all, it's me; I'm walking too fast for myself, and it's so aggravating to see somebody alongside perfectly cool and composed. If I could leave you behind, or you had to trot to keep up with me, it wouldn't be half so trying. As it is I give in. For mercy's sake let's sit on this seat for a minute. You may talk to me now. I no longer feel like tearing the hair off Miss Foster. Tell me now, what was it I did to draw such an avalanche of abuse upon me?"

Side by side they sat down upon one of the hard green seats that are placed at convenient intervals in every road leading out of Hamchester.

Lallie's cheeks were quite rosy after her rapid walk. Her grey eyes were clear and limpid again, candid and inquiring as a child's. Mr. Johns gazing into them felt compelled to speak the truth.

"I think," he said slowly, "it was because you kissed your hand to Cripps."

"It wasn't only to Mr. Cripps, it was to Mr. Berry and Mr. Hamilton as well."

"Perhaps she thought you did it to attract their attention."

"And what if I did? Would she expect me to pass three nice boys living in the same house with me--though it's little enough I see of them--with my nose in the air and never a word of greeting; and if I hadn't gone up by her nasty old back stairs just to please her, this would never have happened."

"After all," said Mr. Johns, still gazing at Lallie, although she no longer looked at him, "does it matter much what Miss Foster thinks?"

"It doesn't matter to me what she thinks, but what she says does matter. I can't let her insult me in public and take no notice."

"She often," Mr. Johns remarked ruefully, "insults me in public, and I take no notice."

"Well, it's very noble of you, but I can't reach those heights. To be told I'm a vulgar flirt and corrupt--corrupt, mind you--the boys, is more than I'll endure from any stout old woman on this earth. Do you think I'd corrupt any boys, Mr. Johns?"

"I'm quite sure you would always use your great influence in the highest possible way," Mr. Johns said solemnly, "but----"

"But what?" Lallie demanded impatiently as he hesitated.

"You might mislead a boy by--ah--for instance, kissing your hand to him."

"How mislead?"

"It's very difficult to put it in such a fashion as not to sound exaggerated and absurd; but you might, you know, make a boy think you were fond of him."

"So I am very fond of them; they're dears, and I'm perfectly ready to leave my character in their hands. They wouldn't misjudge me and think horrid things."

"I don't think they would misjudge you, Miss Clonmell, but they might mistake your intention."

"My intention was perfectly plain--to give them a friendly greeting as I passed. I've always kissed my hand to people ever since I was a wee little girl--Madame taught me to do it--and if that's corrupting them, the sooner I leave B. House the better. I can't turn into Diogenes in his tub at a moment's notice. If I mayn't smile and wave to the people I know, I'd best go where there's a more friendly spirit. And so I'll tell Tony, only it will bother the poor dear so. Do you think Miss Foster will go and harangue Tony, Mr. Johns?"

"I fear it is only too likely."

"Well, she'll get a pretty dressing down when she does," and Lallie gave a sigh of deepest satisfaction. "Tony understands me, however dense other people may be."

"Don't misunderstand me, Miss Clonmell, I beg; I only tried to lay before you a possible point of view--it may be a wholly erroneous one. But you know people of great charm have also great responsibilities, and it seems to me that sometimes--sometimes you are apt to forget how your graciousness may raise false hopes."

"Hopes of what? In the name of common sense what is the man talking about?" Lallie cried despairingly. "Do you mean that if I kiss my hand to a boy he will promptly hope I'll kiss him in a day or two?"

"That's precisely what I do mean, only I shouldn't have dared to say so," Mr. Johns replied emphatically.

"Oh, the boys have got far more sense than you give them credit for. Good gracious, what's that bell?"

Mr. Johns hastily dragged his watch from his pocket.

"Do you know it's a quarter past two and I'm due to play for the town on their ground at three."

"And luncheon will all be gone, and I'm so hungry," Lallie wailed. "You see it was nearly half-past one when I came in, and then Miss Foster was so disagreeable and drove us both out of the house, and we walked and walked; and now what'll we do?"

"I, at any rate, must fly and change. If I take a pony trap down to the ground I'll just do it."

"And you've had no lunch! Oh, I am so distressed!"

"That doesn't matter in the least, I'll snatch a biscuit and a bit of chocolate. When I'm in training I often do without lunch."

"Run then, Mr. Johns; never mind me. If you sprint a bit you'll be at B. House in five minutes."

"Will you not think me very rude?"

"Don't waste time talking--run!"

Mr. Johns ran, and Lallie followed very slowly, wrapped in thought.

CHAPTER XIII

Tony had been playing fives and only managed to change just in time for the boys' dinner. Lallie's seat, at his right hand, was vacant, and he concluded that she was lunching with the Wentworths. Miss Foster sat at another table, and he had no opportunity till the meal was over of asking her what had become of his guest.

Mr. Johns' absence, without warning or explanation, certainly did surprise him, for Mr. Johns was the least casual of men and prided himself upon never being late for, or absent from, any duty whatsoever. It never occurred to Tony to connect his absence with Lallie's.

Tony had promised to take Lallie to the match in the afternoon, but had that morning been unexpectedly summoned to Oxford on rather important business, and the half-holiday made it possible for him to go.

He noticed that Miss Foster, contrary to her usual custom, went straight to the drawing-room directly after lunch, and he followed her there with his question as to the whereabouts of his guest.

Miss Foster stood on the hearthrug in front of the fire--luncheon was always earlier on half-holidays, and it was not yet two-thirty. She looked more than usually formidable, and Tony trembled before her. As he asked his question she waved him to a chair with a majestic motion of the hand.