Front matter (continued 2)

Three ladies stood on the doorstep.

He showed them solemnly into the drawing-room, tripping over his skirt merely a trifle, and nearly giving Bertha, who had primly come to attend to the door, hysterics. He advanced to the smoke-room, where the mayonnaise was nearly completed.

"Mrs. and Miss Dudgeon and Miss Steven are in the drawing-room," said Lance.

CHAPTER VII

Visitors Again

By itself an occurrence like this would have been unnerving enough. Visitors on the afternoon of a party, and such visitors! But that the Leightons should all be more or less in a pickle in regard to the mayonnaise and Lance's foolery seemed to take things altogether over the barrier of ordinary life, and land everybody in a perfect fizzle. The Dudgeons must have called to see Cuthbert, who had never been down yet on these occasions when Mrs. Leighton and Mabel and Jean with perfect propriety had received them. Mabel had had her innings as the eldest of the house, but had retained an enormous reserve when speaking to Miss Dudgeon. Not so Jean, who believed in getting to know people at once. Elma and Betty had never ventured near them since that dreadful day when they all did the wrong thing at the wrong moment.

"Anyhow, the drawing-room is a perfect dream with flowers. They can look at that for a bit," said Jean, as they began to remove the regiment of bottles. Dr. Harry's mayonnaise was creamy and perfect, and Mabel was in high fettle correspondingly.

"Do you know," she said, "I don't care tuppence for the Dudgeons just now. Let's go in and give them a decent reception for once." It reflected the feeling of all, that nothing could disturb their gaiety on this day.

Elma was reminded again how right her father was in declaring that once one had an absorbing object in front of one, trifles dwindled down to their proper level. Why should any of them be afraid of the Story Books? Certainly not at all, on a day when they were about to have a ripping party, and the mayonnaise at last had "mayed." Cuthbert gave a big jolly laugh at Mabel's speech.

"Come along, all of you," he said. "What about those oily fingers of yours, Harry? What a jewel of a husband you'll be! You, Lance, get off these togs and behave yourself."

Lance promised abjectly to be an ornament to the household for the rest of the afternoon. Something in his look as he went off reminded Mabel of other promises of Lance.

"Be good," she called out to him.

"Yes, mother," exclaimed Lance, evidently at work already tearing off the skirt, and looking demure and mournful. He seemed very ridiculous still, and they went off merrily to the drawing-room.

"Cuthbert," whispered Elma, "I'm so frightened. Take me in."

"I'm frightened too," whispered Cuthbert.

This made her laugh, so that as she held on to his arm she approached Adelaide Maud in admirable spirits. The party invaded the drawing-room as a flood would invade it--or so it seemed to the Dudgeons, who were talking quietly to Mrs. Leighton. The whole room sprouted Leightons. Mrs. Dudgeon resorted entirely to her lorgnette, especially when she shook hands with Cuthbert. He stood that ordeal bravely, also the ordeal of the speech that followed.

"You see the two very shy members of the family," he said, bowing gravely and disregarding some sarcastic laughter from the background. "May I introduce my young sister Elma."

Here was honour for Elma. She shook hands with crimson cheeks. Then came Adelaide Maud. She gave her hand to Cuthbert without a word, but when Elma's turn came she said with rather sweet gravity, "This is the little lady, isn't it, who plays to Miss Grace?"

Elma was thunderstruck; but Cuthbert, the magnificent, seemed very pleased.

"Oh--Miss Grace didn't tell you?" asked Elma.

"No, I heard you one day, and Miss Annie told me it was you."

Adelaide Maud sat down on a low chair, and drew Elma on to the arm.

"What was it you were playing?" she asked.

"One is called 'Anything you like,' and one is 'A little thing of my own,' and the others are just anything," said Elma.

Adelaide Maud laughed.

The room was filled with chattering voices, and Mrs. Dudgeon had claimed Cuthbert, so that it became a very easy thing for them to be confidential without any one's noticing.

"It's quite stup--stup----" Elma stopped.

"Stupid?" asked Adelaide Maud.

"No, stup-endous," said Elma thankfully, "for me to be talking all alone with you." Her fright had run away, as it always did whenever any one looked kindly at her. The sweet eyes of Adelaide Maud disarmed her, and she worshipped on the spot. "I've always been so afraid of you," she said simply. "It ought to be Hermione, but I know it will always be you."

"Who is Hermione?" asked Adelaide Maud.

Elma suddenly woke up.

"Oh, I daren't tell you," said she.

Adelaide Maud looked about her in a constrained way.

"I wish you would play to me, dear," she said.

Was this really to be believed!

"I could in the schoolroom," said Elma, "but not here."

"Take me to the schoolroom," said Adelaide Maud.

Elma placed her hand in that of the other delicately gloved one without a tremor.

"Don't let them see us go," she begged.

Three people did, however: Cuthbert with a bounding heart, Mabel with thankfulness that the house was really in exhibition order, and Jean with blank amazement. Elma had walked off in ten minutes intimately with the flower that Jean had, as it were, been tending carefully for weeks, and had not dared to pluck. There was something of the dark horse about Elma.

They were much taken up with Miss Steven however. She was very fair and petite, and had pretty ways of curving herself and throwing back her head, and of spreading her hands when she talked. She seemed to like to have the eyes of the room fixed on her. Quite different from the Dudgeons, who in about two ticks stared one out of looking at them at all. Mr. Leighton came in also, and what might be called her last thaw was undergone by Mrs. Dudgeon in the pleasure of meeting him. If she had her ideas on beaded cushions, she had certainly no objections to Mr. Leighton. In five minutes he was explaining to her that sea trout are to be discovered in fresh water lakes at certain seasons of the year.

Unfortunately, just then Mrs. Dudgeon happened to look out of the windows. There were three long ones, and each opened out on that sunny day to the lawn at the side of the house. If Mrs. Dudgeon had kept her eye on the Louis Seize clock or the famous Monticelli, all might have gone well, but she preferred to look out of the window. In spite of the general hilarity of the party around her, her action in looking out seemed to impress them all. Everybody except Mr. Leighton looked out also, and then came an ominous silence.

Mr. Maclean giggled.

This formed a link to a burst of conversation. Jean turned to Miss Steven and engaged her in a whirlwind of talk. Cuthbert vainly endeavoured to move the stony glance of Mrs. Dudgeon once more in the direction of his father. Dr. Harry wildly asked Mabel to play something.

Mabel never forgave him.

Mrs. Dudgeon immediately became preternaturally polite, said she had often heard of the musical proclivities of the Misses Leighton, and Mabel had really to play.

"Oh, Harry," she exclaimed, "I never played with a burden like this on my mind, never in all my life. The party to-night--and that mayonnaise (it will keep maying, won't it?)--and Elma goodness knows where with Adelaide Maud, and those kids in the garden--couldn't Cuthbert go and slay them?"

She dashed into a Chopin polonaise.

The kids in the garden were what had upset Mrs. Dudgeon. There were two--evidently playing "catch me if you can" with one of the maid-servants--the one who had shown them in. She rushed about in a manner which looked very mad. This exhibition on the drawing-room side of the house! Really--these middle class people!

Mrs. Dudgeon extended the lorgnette to looking at them once more.

A horizontal bar was erected in a corner of the lawn. Towards this the eccentric maid-servant seemed to be making determined passes, frantically prevented every now and again by the two young girls. The chords of the "railway polonaise" hammered out a violent accompaniment. Mabel could play magnificently when in a rage. Little Miss Steven was enchanted.

Nearer came the maid-servant to the horizontal bar. At last she reached it. May and Betty sat down plump on the lawn in silent despair. Lance pulled himself gently and gracefully up. Not content with getting there, he kissed his hand to the unresponsive drawing-room windows. To do him justice, there was little sign for him that any one saw him, and Mabel's piano playing seemed to envelop everything. He did some graceful things towards the end of the polonaise, but with the last chords became violently mischievous again. With a wild whirl he turned a partial somersault. Mrs. Dudgeon shrieked. "Oh, that woman," said she. Just then Lance stopped his whirlings and sent his feet straight into the air. His skirts fell gracefully over his face. Dr. Harry laughed a loud laugh, and at last Mr. Leighton asked what was the matter.

"It's Lance," said Jean. "He has been playing tricks all the afternoon."

Everything might have been forgiven except that Mrs. Dudgeon had been taken in. She had screamed, "That woman."

She began to look about for Adelaide Maud.

"Will you be so kind as to tell my daughter that we must be going," she said to Mr. Leighton.

Cuthbert volunteered to look for her.

Dr. Harry really did the neat thing. He went out for Lance and brought him in with Betty and May. He hauled Lance by the ear to Mrs. Dudgeon.

"Here you see a culprit of the deepest dye."

Lance looked very rosy and mischievous, and Miss Steven, who had been immersed in hysterical laughter since his exploit on the bar, was delighted with him.

"I am so sorry," said Lance gravely, encouraged by this appreciation, "but I promised mother that I should be an ornament to the company this afternoon."

"Oh, Lance," said May, "how can you!"

"By 'mother,' of course I mean Mabel," said Lance to Mrs. Dudgeon in an explanatory fashion. "She has grown so cocky since she put her hair up."

Mrs. Dudgeon determined to give up trying to unravel the middle classes.

Mr. Maclean broke in. "Everybody spoils Lance, Mrs. Dudgeon. It isn't quite his own fault; look at Miss Steven."

Miss Steven, always prompt to appreciate a person's wickedest mood, had made an immediate friend of Lance.

"They are a great trial to us, these young people," said Mr. Leighton gently.

The speech wafted her back to her gracious mood, and for a little while longer she forgot that she had sent for Adelaide Maud.

Meanwhile Cuthbert endeavoured to discover what had happened to that "delicious" person.

With swishing skirts, and gleam of golden hair under a white hat, Elma had seen herself escort Adelaide Maud from the drawing-room to the schoolroom. Adelaide Maud sat on a hassock in the room where "You don't mean to say you were all babies," and Elma played "Anything you like" to her.

Adelaide Maud's face became of the dreamy far-away consistency of Miss Grace's--without the cap, and Elma felt her cup of happiness run over.

"Does your sister play like that?" asked Adelaide Maud.

"Far better," said Elma simply.

They heard the bars of the railway polonaise, and the schoolroom, being just over the drawing-room, they had also the full benefit of Lance's exploit.

Adelaide Maud laughed and laughed.

"Oh, what will Mrs. Dudgeon say?" asked Elma.

She told Adelaide Maud about the party, a frightful "breach of etiquette," as Mabel informed her later. Adelaide Maud's face grew serious and rather sad.

"What a pity you live in another ph--phrase of society," sighed Elma, "or you would be coming too, wouldn't you?"

"Would you really ask me?" asked Adelaide Maud.

Ask her?

Did Adelaide Maud think that if the world were made of gold and one could help one's self to it, one wouldn't have a little piece now and again! She was just about to explain that they would do anything in the world to ask her, when Cuthbert came into the room. Adelaide Maud got so stiff at that moment, that immediately Elma understood that it would never do to ask her to the party.

Cuthbert explained that Mrs. Dudgeon had sent him to fetch Miss Dudgeon.

"Oh," said Adelaide Maud.

She did not make the slightest move towards leaving, however.

She looked straight at Cuthbert, and Elma could have sworn she saw her lip quiver.

"I believe I have to apologize to you," she said in a very cold voice. "I cut out a dance, didn't I--at the Calthorps'!"

"Did you?" asked Cuthbert.

Elma wondered that he could be so negligent in speaking to Adelaide Maud. She never could bear to see Cuthbert severe, and it had the effect of terrifying her a trifle and making her take the hand of Adelaide Maud in a defensive sort of manner.

Adelaide Maud held her hand quite tightly, as though Elma were really a friend of some standing.

"I didn't intend to, but I know it seemed like it," said Adelaide Maud in perfectly freezing tones.

Cuthbert looked at her very directly, and seemed to answer the freezing side more than the apologizing one.

"Oh--a small thing of that sort, what does it matter"? he said grandly.

Adelaide Maud turned quite pale.

"Thank you," said she. "It's quite sweet of you to take it like that," and she marched out of the schoolroom with her skirts swishing and her head high. No--it would never do to invite Adelaide Maud to the party.

Elma however had seen another side to this very dignified lady, and so ran after her and took her hand again.

"You aren't vexed with me, are you?" she whispered.

Adelaide Maud at the turn of the stairs, and just at the point where Cuthbert, coming savagely behind, could not see, bent and kissed Elma.

"What day do you go to Miss Grace's?" she asked.

"To-morrow at three," whispered Elma, with her plans quite suddenly arranged.

"Don't tell," said Adelaide Maud, "I shall be there."

Mrs. Dudgeon departed with appropriate graciousness. The irrepressible gaiety of the company round her had merely served to make her more unapproachable. She greeted Adelaide Maud with a stare, and strove to make her immediate adieus. Mr. Maclean, always ready to notice a deficiency, remembered that Mr. Leighton had never met Adelaide Maud, and forthwith introduced her. Adelaide Maud took this introduction shyly, and Mr. Leighton was charmed with her. With an unfaltering estimate of character he appraised her then as being one in a hundred amongst girls. Adelaide Maud, on her part, showed him gentle little asides to her nature which one could not have believed existed. Mrs. Dudgeon grew really impatient at the constant interruptions which impeded her exit.

"Mr. Leighton has just been telling me," she said by way of getting out of the drawing-room, "that a little party is to be celebrated here to-night. I fear we detain you all." Nothing could have been more gracious--and yet! Mabel flushed. It seemed so like a children's affair--that they should be having a party, and that the really important people were actually clearing out in order to allow it to occur.

Miss Steven said farewell with real regret.

"I don't know when I have had such a jolly afternoon," she said. "I think I must get knocked over oftener. Though I don't want Mr. Leighton to break his ribs every time. Do you know," she said in a most heart-breaking manner, "I've been hardly able to breathe for thinking of it. You can't think how nice it is to see you all so jolly after all."

When they had got into the Dudgeons' carriage, and were rolling swiftly homewards, she yawned a trifle.

"What cures they are," she said airily.

Adelaide Maud, in her silent corner of the carriage, felt her third pang of that memorable afternoon.

CHAPTER VIII

The Party

Nobody knew how anybody got dressed for the party, and certainly nobody took any dinner to speak of. It was laid in the morning-room, and Mr. Leighton said throughout that roystering meal that never again, no matter how many ribs Cuthbert broke or how much sympathy he excited, would he allow them to have a party.

The occasion became memorable, not only because of Cuthbert or the mayonnaise, or the Dudgeons, but because on that night Robin Meredith appeared. Mabel and Jean lately had already in quite a practical manner begun to wonder whom Mabel would be obliged to marry. Jean was getting very tall, and showed signs of being so near the grown-up stage herself, that she was anxious to see Mabel disposed of, so as to leave the way clear.

"The eldest of four ought to look sharp," she declared; "we can't allow any trifling."

This seemed rather overwhelming treatment of Mabel, who was only seventeen. But viewed from that age, even a girl of twenty-one is sometimes voted an old maid, and Mabel was quite determined not to become an old maid.

"There seems to be only George Maclean," she had sighed in a dismal way. She was quite different from Elma, who continually dreamed of a duke. George Maclean would do very well for Mabel, only, as Jean complained, "George Maclean is a gentleman and all that kind of thing, but he has no prospects." So they rather disposed of George Maclean, for immediate purposes at least. Then came Mr. Meredith. After that, in the language of the Leightons, it was all up with Mabel. She would simply have to get engaged and married to Mr. Meredith.

Mr. Meredith was of middle height, with rather a square, fair face, and a short cut-away dark moustache. He spoke in a bright concise sort of way, and darted very quick glances at people when addressing them. He came in with the Gardiners, and after shaking hands with Mrs. Leighton he darted several quick glances round the room, and then asked abruptly of Lucy Gardiner "Who was the tall girl in white?"

Here was the point where the fortunes of the Leighton girls became at last crystallized, concrete. It is all very well to dream, but it is much pleasanter to be sure that something is really about to happen.

None of this undercurrent was noticeable, however, in the general behaviour of that imaginative four. They began the evening in a dignified way with music. Every one either sang or played. Jean in her usual hearty fashion dashed through a "party piece." Even Elma was obliged to play the Boccherini Minuet, which she did with the usual nervous blunders.

As Dr. Harry placed the music ready for her, she whispered to him, "Whenever I lift my heels off the floor, my knees knock against each other."

"Keep your heels down," said Dr. Harry with the immobile air of a commanding officer.

Elma found the piano pedals, and in the fine desire to follow out Dr. Harry's instructions played Boccherini with both pedals down throughout.

"How you do improve, Elma!" said May Turberville politely.

And Elma looked at her with a mute despair in her eyes of which hours of laughter could not rid them. If only they knew, those people in that room, if only they knew what she wanted to play, the melodies that came singing in her heart when she was happy, the minor things when she was sad! All she could do when people were collected to stare at her was to play the Boccherini Minuet exceedingly badly. The weight of "evenings" had begun already to rest on Elma. Her undoubted gifts at learning and understanding music brought her into sharp prominence with her teachers and family, but never enabled Elma to exhibit herself with advantage on any real occasion.

It was all the more inexplicable that Mabel could at once dash into anything with abandon and perfect correctness. Technique and understanding seemed born in her. In the same way could she, light-heartedly and gracefully, take the new homage of Mr. Meredith, who made no secret of his interest in her from the first moment of entering the drawing-room. Mabel received him as she received a Sonata by Beethoven. With fleet fingers she could read the one as though she had practised it all her life; with dainty manners she seemed to comprehend Mr. Meredith from the start, as though she had been accustomed to refusing and accepting desirable husbands from time immemorial. It put her on a new footing with the rest of the girls. They felt in quite a decided way, within a few days even, that the old, rather childish fashion of talking about husbands was to be dropped, and that no jokes were to be perpetrated in regard to Mr. Meredith. It began to be no fun at all having an eligible sister in the house.

On this night, however, they were still children. About forty young people, school friends of themselves and Cuthbert, sustained that gaiety with which they had begun the afternoon. Even the musical part, where Mr. Leighton presided and encouraged young girls with no musical talents whatever to play and sing, passed with a certain amount of lightness. Before an interlude of charades, a strange girl was shown in. She giggled behind an enormous fan, and made a great show of canary-coloured curls in the process. She seemed to have on rather skimpy skirts, and she showed in a lumbering way rather large shiny patent shoes with flat boys' bows on them.

There was a moment of indecision before Betty broke out with the remark, "You might have had the sense to hide your feet, Lance."

The canary-coloured curls enabled Lance to look becomingly foolish. In any case, Mr. Leighton could not prevent the intellectual part of the evening from falling to bits. They had no more real music. Instead, they fell on Lance and borrowed his curls, and made some good charades till supper time.

"I can't help feeling very rocky about that supper," whispered Jean to Mabel. "Yet we've everything--sandwiches, cake, fruit and lemonade, tea and coffee. What can go wrong now?"

"Oh! the thing's all right," said Mabel, who was in a severely exalted mood by this time.

They trooped into the dining-room, where girls were provided in a crushy way with seats round the room, and boys ran about and handed them things. Mrs. Leighton gave the head of the table to Mabel, who sat in an elderly way and poured coffee. The salad was magnificent. Aunt Katharine had come in "to look on." Mrs. Leighton told her how Mabel had arranged forty-two plates that morning, with water-lily tomatoes cut ready and chopped chicken in the centres, and had nearly driven Cook silly with the shelves she used for storing these things in cool places.

"Wherever you looked--miles and miles of little plates with red water lilies," said Mrs. Leighton. "It was most distracting for Cook. I wonder the woman stays."

"What a mess," said Aunt Katharine. "You spoil these girls, you know, Lucy."

"Oh--it's Mr. Leighton," said she sadly.

"I don't think mayonnaise is a very suitable thing for young people's parties," said Aunt Katharine dingily.

By this time the white cake with "Cuthbert" in pink was handed solemnly round. Every person had a large piece, it looked so good.

Every one said, "Walnut, how lovely," when they took the first bite.

Every one stopped at the second bite.

"Cuthbert," called out Mrs. Leighton after she had investigated her own piece, "I notice that your father has none of the cake. Please take him a slice and see that he eats it."

Mr. Leighton waved it away.

"I do not eat walnuts," said he.

Mrs. Leighton went to him.

"John, this is not fair, this is your idea of a party," she said. "You ought to eat Cuthbert's cake."

"He can't," cried Jean; "nobody can. It's only Mabel who likes iced marbles."

"You will all have to eat gingerbread," said the voice of Betty hopefully.

Jean started up in great indignation with a large battered-looking "orange iced cake" ready to cut.

"Betty always gets herself advertized first," she complained. "Please try my orange icing."

They did--they tried anything in order to escape Mabel's walnuts. It occurred to the girls that Mabel would be quite broken up at the wretched failure of her wonderful cake--the Cuthbert cake too. It was such a drop from their high pedestal of perfection. Even mummy, who had been so much on her own high horse at all their successes, now became quite feelingly sorry about the cake. She gave directions for having the loose pieces collected and surreptitiously put out of sight, but the large dish had to remain in front of Mabel. Mabel was still charmingly occupied over her coffee cups. She poured in a pretty direct way and yet managed to talk interestedly to Mr. Meredith. He was invaluable as a helper.

"And now, at last," said she in a most winning manner, "you must have a slice of my cake. I baked it myself, and it's full of walnuts. Don't you love walnuts?"

"I do," said Mr. Meredith.

May Turberville nudged Betty, and Lance stared open-mouthed at the courage of Mabel. He would do a good deal for the Leighton girls, but he barred that particular cake. An electric feeling of comprehension ran round the company. They seemed to know that Mabel was about to taste her own cake and give a large slice to Mr. Meredith. They made little airy remarks to one another in order to keep the conversation going, so that Mabel might not detect by some sudden pause that every one was watching her. One heard Julia Gardiner say in an intense manner to Harry Somerton that the begonias at Mrs. Somerton's were a "perfect dream." And Harry answered that for his part he liked football better. Even Mr. Leighton noticed the trend of things, and stopped discussing higher morality with Aunt Katharine.

Mabel seemed to take an interminable time. She gave Mr. Meredith a large piece, and insisted besides on serving him with an unwieldy lump of pink icing containing a large scrawly "e" from the last syllable of Cuthbert's name.

"E--aw," brayed Lance gently, and Betty exploded into a long series of helpless giggles.

"What a baby you are, Lance," said Mabel, amiably laughing. She bit daintily at the walnut cake.

Mr. Meredith bit largely.

There was an enormous pause while they waited to see what he would do.

Cuthbert and Ronald Martin were near, aimlessly handing trifle and fruit salad. Mr. Meredith helped with one hand to pass a cup.

"You know, Leighton," he said, "I have a great friend, he was one of your year--Vincent Hope--do you remember him?"

Cuthbert stared. One mouthful was gone and Mr. Meredith was cheerfully gulping another.

"What a digestion the man has," he thought, and next was plunged politely in reminiscent conversation regarding his College days.

Mabel sat crunching quite happily at the despised walnut cake.

Lance approached her timidly.

"For Heaven's sake," he said, "give me a large cup of coffee for the ostrich. The man will die if he isn't helped."

"Who on earth do you mean, Lance?" asked Mabel innocently.

"Meredith. Don't you see he has eaten the cake."

Mabel looked conscience-stricken. Her own slice had not dwindled much.

"It is rather chucky-stoney, isn't it?" she asked anxiously.

"It's terrific," said Lance sagely.

Mabel looked quite crushed for a moment, so crushed that even Lance's mischievous heart relented.

"Never mind, Mabel," he comforted her. "If Meredith can do that much for you without a shudder, he will do anything. It's a splendid test."

A golden maxim of Mrs. Leighton's flashed into Mabel's mind, "You never know a man till he has been tried." It made her smile to think that already they might be supposed to be getting to know Mr. Meredith because of her villainous cake.

"The piece we tested wasn't so bad," she explained to Lance, quite forgetting that she had skimmed that quantity in order to get plenty of chopped walnuts into the "real" cake.

A few people in the room seemed fearfully amused, and poor Mabel in an undefined manner began to feel decidedly out of it. Lance went about like a conspirator, commenting on the appearance of "the ostrich." He approached Cuthbert, asking him in an anxious manner how long the signs of rapid poisoning might be expected to take to declare themselves after a quadruple dose of walnut cake. Mr. Meredith unruffled, still handed about cups for Mabel.

Jean was in a corner with her dearest friend Maud Hartley.

"Isn't it wonderful what love can do?" she remarked quite seriously. It was a curious thing that Elma, who dreamed silly dreams about far-away things, and was despised for this accordingly by the robust Jean, did not become romantic over Mr. Meredith at all. She merely thought that he must be fearfully fond of walnuts.

The supper was hardly a pleasure to her--or to Betty. Every dish was an anxiety. They could almost count the plates for the different courses in their desire to know whether each had been successfully disposed of. There was no doubt about the trifle.

"What a pity Mabel didn't make it," sighed Jean. After all, Mabel had only inspired the chicken salad, and even there Dr. Harry had made the mayonnaise.

"It isn't much of a start for her with Mr. Meredith," she sighed dismally, "if only we hadn't told anybody which was which."

Mr. Meredith took a large amount of trifle, praising it considerably.

This alarmed Lance more than ever.

"One good thing does not destroy a bad thing," he exclaimed. "The first axiom to be learned in chemistry is that one smell does not kill another. It is a popular delusion that it does. Meredith seems to have been brought up on popular lines."

He posed in front of Cuthbert with his hands in his pockets.

"We are running a great risk," said he. "To-morrow morning Meredith may be saying things about your sisters which may prevent us men from being friends with him--for ever."

Above the general flood of conversation, Aunt Katharine's treble voice might now be heard.

"Mabel," she said in a kind manner, "I must compliment you. When your mother told me about this ridiculous party, I told her she was spoiling you as she always does. In my young days we weren't allowed to be extravagant and experiment in cooking whenever a party occurred. We began with the 'common round, the daily task.'" Aunt Katharine sighed heavily. "But I never knew you could make a trifle like this."

Mabel had been sitting like the others, trying to subdue the merriment which Aunt Katharine's long speeches usually aroused. The wind-up to this tirade alarmed her however. She would have to tell them all, with Mr. Meredith standing there, that the trifle was not her trifle. She would have to say that it was Betty's.

Before she could open her mouth however, the whole loyal regiment of Leightons had forestalled her.

"Isn't it a jolly trifle!" they exclaimed. Mabel could even hear Betty's little pipe joining in.

"Oh, but I must tell you," she began.

Cuthbert appeared at the doorway.

"Drawing-room cleared for dancing," said he. "Come along."

That finished it, and the girls were delighted with themselves. But one little melancholy thing, for all her partisanship, disturbed Jean considerably. Mr. Meredith, on giving his arm to Mabel for the first dance, was heard distinctly to remark, "You make all these delicious things as well as play piano! How clever of you."

And Mabel looking perfectly possessed floated round to the first waltz as though she had not made a complete muddle of the walnut cake.

Jean did not regret their generosity, but she was saddened by it.

"It all comes of being the eldest," she confided to Maud, "We may stand on our heads now if we like, but if anything distinguished happens in the family, Mabel will get the credit of it."

CHAPTER IX

At Miss Grace's

Miss Grace sat crocheting in her white and gold drawing-room and Elma played to her. Then the front door bell rang.

"Oh please, Miss Grace," said Elma with crimson cheeks, "that is Adelaide Maud."

"She isn't coming, I hope, to disturb our afternoons, and your playing," asked Miss Grace anxiously.

"Oh, Miss Grace, she has eyes like yours and listens most interrogatively," said Elma in the greatest alarm. The fear that Miss Grace might be offended only now assailed her.

"Intelligently, dear," corrected Miss Grace.

"I never did truly think she would come," said Elma.

"Then, dear, it was not very polite to invite her." Miss Grace could not bear that Elma should miss any point in her own gentle code of etiquette.

"In justice to little Elma, I invited myself." The full-throated tones of Miss Dudgeon's voice came to them from the door. "And what is more, I said to Saunders, 'Let me surprise Miss Grace, I do not want to disturb the music.'"

"And then of course the music stopped," said Miss Grace.

She kissed Adelaide Maud in a very friendly way.

"Oh, but it will go on again at once, if neither of you are offended," said Elma. She was much relieved.

"You must not be so afraid of offending people," said Miss Grace. "It is a great fault of yours, dear."

As Adelaide Maud bent to kiss her, Elma was struck with the justice of this criticism.

"I believe I might be as fascinating as Mabel if only I weren't afraid," she thought to herself. The reflection made her play in a minor key.

"Just let me say a few words to Miss Grace," had said Adelaide Maud. "Play on and don't mind us for a bit."

Adelaide Maud spoke to Miss Grace in an undertone. Elma thought they did it to let her feel at ease, and correspondingly played quite happily.

"I have seen Dr. Merryweather," said Adelaide Maud to Miss Grace. "He says you must go off for a change at once."

"Dr. Merryweather!"

Miss Grace turned very pale.

"Exactly. I did it on my own responsibility. He was most concerned about you. He said that what Dr. Smith had ordered you ought to carry out."

"He was always very hard on Annie," said Miss Grace, who saw only one side to such a proposal.

Adelaide Maud bent her head a trifle.

"You ought not to think of Miss Annie, at present," said she. "It isn't right. It isn't fair to her either, supposing you turn really ill, what would become of her?"

Neither noticed the lagging notes on the piano. Instead, in the earnestness of their conversation, they entirely forgot Elma.

Miss Grace shook her head.

"I can't help it," she said. "Whatever happens to me, I must stay by my bed-ridden sister. Who would look after her if I deserted her? What is my poor well-being compared to hers!"

The notes on the piano fell completely away. Elma sat with the tears raining down her face.

"Oh, Miss Grace," she said brokenly, "are you ill? Don't say you are ill."

The sky had fallen indeed, if such a thing could be true, as Miss Grace in a trouble of her own--and such a trouble--ill health--when Miss Annie required her so much.

Adelaide Maud looked greatly discouraged.

"Now, Elma," she exclaimed abruptly, "Miss Grace is only a little bit ill, and it's to keep her from getting worse that I'm talking to her. We didn't intend you to listen. Miss Annie will wonder why the piano has stopped. Be cheerful now and play a bit--something merrier than what you've been at."

She pretended not to see that Miss Grace wiped her eyes a trifle.

"I make you an offer, Miss Grace. I shall come here every day and stay and be sweet to every one. I shall take Miss Annie her flowers and her books and her work, and I shall bark away all nasty intruders like a good sheep dog. I shall keep the servants in a good temper--including Saunders who is a love, and I promise you, you will never regret it--if only you go away for a holiday--now--before you have time to be ill, because you didn't take the thing at the start!"

(Could this be Adelaide Maud!)

Elma flung herself off the music stool, and rushed to Miss Grace.

"And oh, please, please, Miss Grace, let me go with you to see that you get better. You never will unless some one makes you. You will just try to get back to Miss Annie." Thus Elma sounded the first note of that great quality she possessed which distinguished the thing other people required and made her anxious to see it given to them.

A break in Miss Grace's calm determination occurred.

"Oh that, my love, my dear little love, that would be very pleasant." She patted Elma's hand with anxious affection.

Adelaide Maud looked hopeful.

"Won't you leave it to us?" she asked, "to Dr. Smith to break it to Miss Annie, as a kind of command, and to me to break it to Mr. Leighton as an abject request? Because I believe this idea of Elma's is about as valuable as any of mine. You must have some one with you who knows how self-denying you are, Miss Grace. You ought to have Dr. Merryweather with you in fact, to keep you in order."

"My dear, how can you suggest such a thing," said Miss Grace. She was quite horrified.

"Dr. Smith," she turned to Elma, "has ordered me off to Buxton, to a nasty crowded hotel where they drink nasty waters all day long."

"They don't drink the waters in the hotel, and the hotels are very nice," corrected Miss Dudgeon.

"It will be very hot and crowded and dull," wailed Miss Grace. It was astonishing how obstinate Miss Grace could be on a point where her own welfare was concerned.

Elma clasped and unclasped her hands.

"A hotel! Oh, Miss Grace, how perfectly lovely!"

"There, you see," said Miss Dudgeon, wonderfully quick to notice where her advantage came in, "you see what a delightful time you will confer on whoever goes with you. Some of us love hotels."

Perhaps nobody ever knew what a golden picture the very suggestion opened out to Elma. Already she was in a gorgeous erection with gilt cornices and red silk curtains, like one she had seen in town. People whom she had never met were coming and going and looking at her as though they would like to speak to her. She would not know who their aunts or cousins or parents were, and she shouldn't have to be introduced. They would simply come to Miss Grace and, noticing how distinguished she looked, they would say, "May I do this or that for you," and the thing was done. She herself would be able to behave to them as she always behaved in her daydreams, very correctly and properly. She would never do the silly blundering thing which one always did when other people were well aware of the reputation one was supposed to bear. Didn't every one at home know, before she sat down to play piano for instance, that she invariably made mistakes. Jean would say, "Oh, Elma gets so rattled, you know," and immediately it seemed as though she ought to get rattled. Nobody in the hotel would know this. She saw herself playing to an immense audience without making a single mistake. Then the applause--it became necessary to remember that Miss Grace was still speaking.

Miss Grace sat with her hands folded nervously. She was quite erect in a way, but there was invariably a pathetic little droop to her head and shoulders which gave her a delicate appearance. A very costly piece of creamy lace was introduced into the bodice of her grey gown, and on it the locket which contained Miss Annie's portrait and hair rose and fell in little agitated jerks. Miss Annie wore a corresponding locket containing Miss Grace's portrait and hair, but these always lay languorously on her white throat undisturbed by such palpitation as now excited Miss Grace.

"Oh, my dear," she said to Miss Dudgeon, "you don't understand. The gaiety of the place is nothing to me. It's like being here--where my friends say to me how nice it is to have windows opening on to the high road, where so many people pass. I tell them that it isn't those who pass, it is those who come in who count. You passed for so long, my dear."

She put her hand mutely on that of Adelaide Maud.

It was true then. Miss Grace hadn't known her all these years when the Leighton girls talked about the Story Books so much, but only recently! The Dudgeons must really be coming out of their shell.

Elma's eyes grew round with conjecture.

Why was Adelaide Maud so friendly now?

"It was really Dr. Merryweather," said Adelaide Maud.

A faint flush invaded Miss Grace's pallor.

"It is most kind of Dr. Merryweather. Years ago, I am afraid we rather slighted him."

"Oh well, he keeps a very friendly eye on you, Miss Grace, and he says you are to go to Buxton."

It became the first real trouble of Miss Grace's own life, that she should have to go to Buxton. Adelaide Maud arranged it for her, otherwise the thing would never have occurred. It was she who persuaded Dr. Smith to put it this way to Miss Annie that it would be dangerous for her to have the anxiety of Miss Grace's being ill at home, and most upsetting to the household. It was better that the excursion should be looked upon as a holiday graciously granted by Miss Annie, the donor of it, than an imperative measure ordered by the doctor for the saving of Miss Grace.

Miss Grace wondered at the ready acquiescence of Miss Annie. She seemed almost pleased to let her sister go. In a rather sad way, Miss Grace began to wonder whether, after all, she might not have released herself years ago. Would Annie have minded? The progress of this malady which now asserted itself, she had quietly ignored for so long, that only a darting pain, which might attack her in the presence of Miss Annie, had compelled her to consult Dr. Smith. He was astonished at what she had suffered.

"You do not deserve to have me tell you how fortunate it is that after all we have nothing malignant to discover," he told her. "But you will become really ill, helpless occasionally, if you do not take this in hand now." Just after he had gone, Adelaide Maud called. She came to ask for money in connection with the church, but she stayed to talk over Miss Grace's symptoms. The grey shadow on Miss Grace's face had alarmed her.

"Aren't you well, Miss Grace?" she asked sympathetically. Then for the first time since Miss Annie had gone to bed, Miss Grace had given way and confessed what the trouble was to Adelaide Maud.

It became astonishing to think how rapidly things could happen in so tiny and so slow a place.

Here they were now, in a happy confidential trio, the moving inspirator that smart, garden-party person, Adelaide Maud.

The Leighton girls could not believe it. They had, with the exception of Elma, reached a hopeless condition with regard to the Story Books. The Dudgeons had so palpably shown themselves, even although graciously polite throughout, to be of so entirely different a set to the Leightons. None of the girls except Adelaide Maud had called. And after what Cuthbert had done! Elma certainly felt the difference that might occur where Miss Grace and Miss Annie were concerned. "Why haven't we a footman and an odd man?" asked Jean viciously. "Then it would be all right."

Now came the invitation for Elma to go with Miss Grace.

Both Mr. and Mrs. Leighton were greatly touched. Mr. Leighton put his hand on Elma's shoulder.

"When you can make yourself indispensable to your best friends, that is almost as great a thing as playing the Moonlight Sonata without a mistake," said he.

But both Mrs. Leighton and he refused to let Elma go. They called on Miss Grace to explain. The fact that they had left Elma in a state of despair that bordered on rebellion made them more firm.

"Elma is so young," said Mrs. Leighton, "and so highly strung and sensitive, I can't let her go with an easy mind. She has visited so seldom, and then invariably lain awake at nights with the excitement. It wouldn't be good for you, Miss Grace. I should have you both very much on my mind."

Adelaide Maud was there.

"I see your point, Mrs. Leighton," she said brightly. "But Elma knows Miss Grace so well, wouldn't it be just like going with you or Mr. Leighton."

Mr. Leighton interposed.

"It's more for the sake of Miss Grace. She must have some one regarding whom she does not require to be anxious. Elma is a dreamy little being, and might turn home-sick in an hour, or frightened if Miss Grace were a little ill--anything might occur in that way."

"But she is nearly thirteen. Some day she must be cured of home-sickness, and Miss Grace will take her maid," said Adelaide Maud. "Oh, Mr. Leighton, don't hold in your daughters too much! It's so hard on them later."

Adelaide Maud looked quite pathetic.

"It isn't so with all of them," said Mrs. Leighton. "Jean is quite different. Jean can go anywhere."

Underneath Mrs. Leighton's kind, loving ways lay a superb respect for the domineering manners of her second daughter.

"I should never be afraid of Jean's lying awake at night, or turning home-sick. She is much too sensible."

Miss Grace became impressed with the virtues of Jean.

"Then Jean might come," she proposed apologetically.

Adelaide Maud could not forgive her. After having awakened that radiant look in Elma's eyes, to weakly propose that she might take the robust Jean!

Mrs. Leighton's eyes wandered to her husband.

"Jean grows so fast. Perhaps a change would do her good," she suggested vaguely.

"I should feel much more confident of Jean," said he.

So it was arranged.

Elma never forgot it. She wept silently in her room, and accepted comfort from no one, not even her mother.

"There is one thing, Jean oughtn't to have said to mother she would go. She put that in her mind before mother went out. I knew it was all up then. Jean will always get what she wants, all her life, and I shall have to back out. Just because I can't play sonatas without mistakes they think I cannot do anything."

Elma found Betty's shoulder very comforting.

A remark of Adelaide Maud's rankled in Mr. Leighton's mind. He was not altogether happy at having to act the dragon to Elma in any case. Adelaide Maud had got him quietly by herself.

"Don't let little Elma begin giving up things to those sisters of hers too soon, Mr. Leighton. Unselfishness is all very well. But look at the helpless thing it has made of Miss Grace."

Then she relented at sight of his face.

"I'm almost as disappointed as Elma, you see," she said radiantly.

Mr. Leighton tried to put it out of his mind, but Elma, sobbing in her bedroom, had at last reached a stage where she couldn't pretend that nothing had hurt her, a stage where the feelings of other people might be reckoned not to count at all. It was an unusual condition for her to be in. She generally fought out her disappointments in secret. Her father came to her finally, and began smoothing her hair in a sad sort of way.

"You aren't looking on your own father as your worst enemy?" he asked her kindly.

Elma's sobs stopped abruptly.

"I was," she said abjectly.

It was part of the sincerity of her nature that she immediately recognized where the case against herself came in.

"I'm sorry about Jean," said Mr. Leighton. "It didn't strike me at the time that it would be such a treat to either of you, you see. And we chose the one who seemed most fitted for going with Miss Grace."

"Mabel might have gone," wailed Elma.

Mabel! Not for a moment had the claims of Mabel been mentioned. Mr. Leighton was completely puzzled.

Elma in an honourable manner felt that probably she might be giving away Mabel to an unseeing parent. Mabel wanted, oh very much, to stay at home just then.

"But of course Jean wanted to go," she said hurriedly. "more than Mabel did."

"Some day you will all have your turn," said Mr. Leighton consolingly. "I know it's very dull being at home with your parents! Isn't it?"

Elma laughed a little.

"It isn't that," she said, "but it would be lovely--in a hotel--with a maid, you know--of your own! Such fun--seeing the people. And Miss Grace wanted me."

Mr. Leighton stroked her hair.

"I liked her wanting you. I shall never forget that," said he.

"Oh!" Elma gave a little gulp of pleasure. This was worth a great deal. There was really nothing on earth like being complimented by one's father. She sidled on Mr. Leighton's knee and put her arms round his neck. He still stroked her hair.

"You must remember that it isn't only in hotels that you see life," he said, "or on battle-fields that you fight battles. It's here at home, where one apparently is only sheltered and dull. It's always easy to get on for a day or two with new, or outside friends. But it's your own people who count. Don't make it disagreeable for Jean to go with Miss Grace." His voice came in the nature of a swift command. After all, her mother and father had arranged it, and the consciousness came down on her of how she slighted those two, dearer than any, in being so rebellious.

"I won't," said Elma. Quite a determined little line settled at her quivering lips, "But I never felt so bad in my life."

"Oh well, we shall see what can be done about that," said Mr. Leighton. And it pleased him more than a battle-field of victories could have done to see Elma come into her own again.

"Do you think you could try the Moonlight Sonata now?" he asked abruptly, looking at his watch.

It was his hobby that he must keep at least one girl at the piano in the evenings.

"Not without a lot of mistakes," said Elma.

But she played better that night than she had ever done.

CHAPTER X

Compensations

Miss Grace brought home a delicate silver purse and a silver chain set with torquoise matrix from Buxton for Elma.

Mr. Leighton shook his head over the pretty gift.

"Bribery and corruption," said he.

But by that time Elma's soul had soared far above the heights or depths of triumph or pettiness in connection with the sojourn of Miss Grace. Life had been moving swiftly and wonderfully. Jean indeed came home from hotel life, full of stories of its inimitable attractions; and nobody, although longing to be, had really been much impressed. Jean served to mark the milestone of their own development, that was all. She had left at one stage and come back at another. Where she had imagined their standing quite still, they had been travelling new roads, looking back on their childish selves with interest.

Mabel and Elma had been thrown much together, and Mabel had grown to depend on the silent loyalty with which Elma invariably supported her in the trying time now experienced in connection with Mr. Meredith. Where Jean, bolt outright, complained that already Mabel had known him for a month or two, and yet no hint of an engagement could be discovered, Elma sympathized with Mabel's horror of any engagement whatever.

"It would be lovely to have a ring, and all that kind of thing," Mabel had confided. "But fancy having to talk to papa and mamma about it!"

It did not impede her friendship with Mr. Meredith however. He had found a flower which he intended to pluck, and he guarded it to all intents and purposes as one from which he would warn off intruders. But the reserve which made Mabel sensitive in regard to anything definite, her extreme youth, above all the constant espionage of her parents and sisters, led him to a tacit understanding of his privileges, a situation appalling to the business-like Jean.

"If I had had my hair up, I should have had two proposals at Buxton," said she, and the remark became historic.

Cuthbert put it in his notebook. Whenever he wanted to overcome the authority of Jean he produced and read it. She found her family a trifle trying on her arrival. She wanted to be able to inform them how they should dress, and had a score of other things ready to retail to them. Yet most of them fell quite flat, just as though she had had no special advantages in being at Buxton.

Mr. and Mrs. Leighton talked this over together.

"It makes me think," said Mrs. Leighton, "that you are not altogether wrong in crowding them up at home here. Jean got variety, but she seems to have lost a little in balance."

"Still, that is just where experience teaches its lesson," said Mr. Leighton. "To get balance, one must have the experience. Yet Mabel, in an unaccountable manner, seems to be perfectly balanced before she has received any experience at all."

"Ah! I expect she will still have her experiences," said Mrs. Leighton in her pessimistic way. "No girl gets along without some unpleasant surprise. Betty is longing for one. Betty complains that in story books something tragic or something wonderful happens to girls whenever they begin to grow up, but that nothing happens in this place. Nobody loses money--if you please--and nobody gets thrown out on the world in a pathetic manner to work for a living, for instance."

"Do they want to work for their living?"

"They do want to be sensational," said Mrs. Leighton with a sigh, "and as Elma says, 'We are neither rich enough nor poor enough for that.'"

"Thank providence," said Mr. Leighton.

His girls were much more of a problem to him than the direct Cuthbert, who had shown a capacity for going his own way rather magnificently from the moment he had left school. Mr. Leighton was determined to give his girls an object in life, besides the ordinary one of getting married. "There is great solace in the arts," he had often affirmed, making it seem impossible that a girl should look on the arts as ends in themselves, as a man would. "A girl must be trained to interruptions," he used to declare. He made rather a drudge of their music in consequence of these theories in connection with a career, but the hard taskmaster in that direction opened a willing indulgence in almost any other. It alarmed him when Mr. Meredith appeared so conspicuously on the scene, when Mr. Meredith's sister called and invited Mabel to dine, when invitations crossed, until the Merediths and themselves became very very intimate. Elma had the wonderful pleasure of being allowed to accompany Mabel. In the absence of Jean, she fulfilled that sisterly position in a loyal way, loving the exaltation of going out with Mabel, becoming very fond of the Merediths in the process. They had only recently come from town to live near the Gardiners, and the whole place did its duty in calling on them. There were only Mr. Meredith and his sister, and both were of the intensely interesting order rather than of the frank and lively nature of the like of the Leightons. Mr. Meredith sang, and Miss Meredith's first words to Mabel were to the effect that he no longer wanted his sister to play for him after having had the experience of Mabel as an accompanist.

"Aren't you glad papa made us musical?" asked Betty of Mabel after that compliment.

Mabel was glad in more ways than one. But it seemed a little hard that just then Mr. Leighton should insist on her going in for a trying examination in the spring.

"When she ought to be getting the 'bottom drawer' ready," complained poor Jean.

Nothing moved for Jean in the family just as she expected. She began to wonder whether she shouldn't go out as a governess. Jane Eyre had always enthralled her. It was one way of seeing life, to be very down-trodden, and then marry the magnificent over-bearing hero.

As a companion to Miss Grace, she had been a great success. Indeed, even Adelaide Maud was bound to confess that Jean had been just the person to go with Miss Grace. Jean, in spite of her Jane Eyre theories, was so down on self-effacement. Her frank direct ways were the best tonic for a lady who had never at any time been courageous. Miss Grace wrote continually to Elma, "Jean has been very good in doing this--or that," until Elma, swallowing hard lumps of mortification, had at last to believe that she never could have done these determined, cool-hearted things for Miss Grace in the same capable manner. She often wondered besides whether, even to have had the delight of being at Buxton, she could have dropped the glamour of finding a new sister in Mabel, and of being the daily companion of Adelaide Maud. For the time had now come, when, on being shown into Miss Annie's drawing-room, her duke, clean-shaven and of modern manners, had ceased to be really diverting, and in fact often forgot to attend to her in the pause when she awaited the coming of Adelaide Maud.

Adelaide Maud kept her word. She reigned as vice-queen over Miss Annie's household, indulging that lady in all her little whims, for Miss Grace's sake, and never omitted a single day for calling and seeing that Miss Annie was comfortable. Adelaide Maud had theories of her own. She said that every one in Ridgetown attended to the poor, but that she believed in attending to the rich.

"Now who would ever have looked after Miss Grace if we hadn't?" she asked Elma.

Mrs. Dudgeon imagined she had other reasons for being so devoted to Miss Annie, and considered that Helen wasted her time in applying so much of it to a bedridden invalid.

"Whom do you see there?" she asked stonily.

"Principally Saunders," said Helen, whose good temper was unassailable. "Saunders is a duck."

The "duck," however, was a trifle worried with these changes, "not having been accustomed to sich for nigh on twenty-five years, mum," as he explained to Mrs. Leighton.

But the great boon lay in the restored health of Miss Grace. She came home shyly as ever, but with a fresh bloom on her face. What withered hopes that trip recalled to life, what memories of sacrificial days gone by, what fears laid past--who knows! She was very gentle with Miss Annie, and boasted of none of her late advantages as Jean did. Indeed, one might have thought that the events of the world had as usual taken place in Miss Annie's bedroom. But, with a courage born of new health and better spirits. Miss Grace called one day on Dr. Merryweather. In a graceful manner, as though the event had only occurred, she apologized to him for the slight offered by Miss Annie.

"I hope you know that you still have our supreme confidence," she said. "It was your kind interest which persuaded me to go to Buxton."

Dr. Merryweather seemed much affected. He shook her hand several times, but his voice remained gruff as she had always remembered and slightly feared it.

"You must be exceedingly careful of yourself, Miss Grace," he said bluntly, "Miss Annie has had too much of you."

Too much of her. Ah, well, she could never reproach herself for having spared an inch of her patience, an atom of her slender strength.

"Remember," said Dr. Merryweather, "courage does not all lie in self-sacrifice, though"--and he looked long at the kind beautiful eyes of Miss Grace--"a great deal of it is invested there."

He held her hand warmly for a second again, and that was the end of it. Miss Grace went home fortified to a second edition of her life with Miss Annie.

Adelaide Maud gave up her semi-suzerainty over the masterful Saunders with some real regret. It was fun for her to be engaged in anything which did not entail mere social engagements. Miss Annie liked her thoroughly, liked the swirl of her tweed skirts, the daintiness of her silk blouses, the gleam of her golden hair. Adelaide Maud had straight fine features, pretty mauve eyes ("They are mauve, my dear, no other word describes them," she declared), very clearly arched eyebrows, and "far too determined a chin." "Where did you get your chin?" asked Miss Annie continually.

"My father had the face of an angel. It wasn't from him," said Adelaide Maud. "I have my mother to thank for my chin."

"Well, Heaven help the man who tries to cross you, my dear," said Miss Annie, who had a very capable chin of her own, as it happened. The tired petulant look of the invalid only showed at the droop to the corners of her mouth.

Elma could no longer interest Adelaide Maud in Cuthbert. It seemed as though he had no further existence. Until one day when she told her that Cuthbert had an appointment which would last throughout the summer, and keep him tied to town. Then the chin of Adelaide Maud seemed to resolve itself into less chilly lines.

"Oh, won't you miss him?" she suddenly asked.

Adelaide Maud was the most comprehending person. She pulled Elma to her and kissed her when Elma said that it wasn't "missing," it simply wasn't "living" without Cuthbert.

"I'm so sorry you quarrelled with him," she said to Adelaide Maud.

Adelaide Maud grew stonily angry.

"Quarrel with him?" she asked.

It reminded Elma of the Dudgeon's first call

"Oh, please don't," she cried in alarm.

"Then I won't," said Adelaide Maud, "but will you kindly inform me when I quarrelled with your brother Cuthbert."

It was exactly in the tone of one who would never think of quarrelling with the Leighton set. Elma grew quite pale, then her courage rose.

"He thinks such a lot of you, and you don't think anything of him. Just as though we weren't good enough!"

"Oh, Elma," said Adelaide Maud.

"And he likes you, and keeps things you drop, and you won't even speak to him."

"Keeps things I drop!"

The murder was out.

"Oh, I promised not to tell, how awful."

Adelaide Maud grew very dignified.

"What did I drop? Oh! I think I remember--my handkerchief!"

Mrs. Dudgeon had reflected openly on the fact that it had never been returned to Helen.

"I wanted to keep it till we saw you again, but he said he would give it to you when you were nice to him, or something like that."

"Till I was nice to him!" The chin dimpled a trifle.

"Somehow, I would rather he kept it," said Adelaide Maud dreamily.

"Shall I tell him that?" asked Elma anxiously.

"Tell him--what nonsense! You mustn't tell him a syllable. You mustn't say you've told me. It would be so ignominious for him to hear that I knew he had been thieving! Thieving is the word," said Adelaide Maud. Although she talked in a very accusing manner, her voice seemed kind.

"Mayn't I tell him you didn't mean to quarrel?" asked Elma anxiously. "You don't know what you are to all of us."

Here she sighed deeply.

"No," said Adelaide Maud, "you mustn't tell him anything. I think he must just wait as he suggested, until I am nice to him."

"Until you deserved it, he said," cried Elma, triumphantly, remembering properly at last. "I knew it was something like that."

"Then he may wait until he is a hundred," said Adelaide Maud with her face in a flame.

It was difficult after this ever to talk to Adelaide Maud about Cuthbert with any kind of freedom or pleasure.

Elma went home that evening in the bewilderment of an early sunset. Bright rays turned the earth golden, the leaves on the trees laid themselves flat in heavy blobs of green in yellow sunlight, the sky faded to a glimmering blue in the furthermost east. A shower of rain fell from a drifting cloud and the drops hit in large splotches, first on Elma's hat, on her hand, and then in an indefinite manner stopped. As she turned into her own garden, the White House seemed flooded in a golden glow of colour.

Then at last they heard thunder in the distance.

Elma never forgot that shining picture, nor the thunder in the distance. It seemed the picture of what life might be, beautiful and safe in one's own home, thunder only in the distance. The threatening did not alarm her, but the remembrance of it always remained with her. When thunder really began to peal for the Leighton family, she tried to be thankful for the picture of gold.

CHAPTER XI

The Split Infinitive

Guests at the Leightons' were divided into two classes. There were those who were friends of Mr. Leighton, and who therefore were interested in art, or literature, or science, or public enterprise, but were not expected to go further; and there were those who came in a general way and who might be expected to be interested in anything from a game of tennis to a tea party. Of the first might be reckoned the like of Mr. Sturgis, who painted pictures in a magnificent manner, and who, at the end of a large cigar, would breathe the heresies on the teaching of art which for ever paralyzed the artistic abilities of Elma. Mr. Sturgis was quite young enough for an Aunt Katharine public to quote his eligibility on all occasions.

"You don't understand, Aunt Katharine," Mabel told her once. "Nobody seems to understand that a man, even a young man, may adore papa without having to adore us at the same time. Mr. Sturgis is quite different from your kind of young man."

"Different from Robin, I suppose," sighed Aunt Katharine.

"Yes, quite different from Robin," said Mabel sedately. Robin had certainly from the first put Mr. Leighton into the position of being his daughter's father. Mr. Sturgis, on the other hand, found his first friend in Mr. Leighton because he had such a nice discriminating and most sympathetic enthusiasm for Art. Besides which Mr. Leighton had the attributes of an exceptional man in various respects.

The girls put Mr. Sturgis on the same high plane as their father and admired him openly accordingly. But there were others whom they put on this plane by reason of their accomplishments and yet did not admire at all.

Amongst these was the "Split Infinitive."

The first call on the part of Professor Theo. Clutterbuck was one never to be forgotten. He found a roomful of people who, so far as his own attitude to them was concerned, might have been so many pieces of furniture. Mr. Sturgis had at least the artist's discrimination which made him observe one's appearance, and he also allowed one to converse occasionally; but Dr. Clutterbuck rushed his one subject at Mr. Leighton from the moment of his entrance, and after that no one else existed.

"What more or less could you expect from the father of the Serpent?" asked Betty.

Lance was responsible for the nickname.

The Serpent, the elf-like daughter of the Professor, staying next to the Turbervilles, had introduced herself in a violent manner long ago to Betty and Elma. Sitting one day, hidden high in the maple tree, she cajoled her cat silently over the Turberville wall and from a wide branch sent him sprawling on a tea table. From the moment that the black cat drew a white paw from the cream jug, and a withering giggle from the maple tree disclosed the wicked little visage of the Serpent, war had been declared between the Clutterbucks and the Turbervilles. Lance occasionally removed the barrier and met the Professor in company with his own father.

"An awful crew," his verdict ran. "The Past Participle (Mrs. Clutterbuck) can't open her poor little timid mouth but the Split Infinitive is roaring at her. Consequently she keeps as silent as the grave."

"Will you kindly explain?" said Mrs. Leighton patiently. "It's a long time since I studied grammar in that intimate way. What is the Split Infinitive and why the Past Participle?"

"It's like this, Mrs. Leighton, simple when you know--or when you are married to a brute like Clutterbuck," said Lance mischievously. "I beg your pardon. I know I ought to say that he is a genius and all that sort of thing. But 'brute' seems more explicit."

"Go on with your story," said Mrs. Leighton.

"Well--Clutterbuck married Mrs. Clutterbuck."

"That's generally the end of a story, isn't it?" asked Jean.

Lance was not to be interrupted.

"Trust a boy for gossip," exclaimed Betty. "Fire away, Lance."

"My aunt knew them," said Lance. "She, Mrs. C., was a little dear, awfully pink and pretty you know, and Clutterbuck, a big raw thin thing with wild sort of hair and dreamy manners. Well, they were awfully proud and pleased with themselves, and started off for their honeymoon like two happy babies."

"Will you kindly tell me how you knew this?" asked Mrs. Leighton helplessly.

"I heard my aunt telling my mother," said Lance.

"There's a gleam in your eye which I don't quite trust," Elma remarked sedately. "Go on."

"Everything went well," exclaimed Lance, "until one morning when Mrs. C., all rosy and chiffony you know, said 'My dear Theo, I don't remember to ever have been so happy.' Clutterbuck rose from the table, as pale as death. She cried, 'Theo, Theo, tell me, what is wrong?' 'Wrong,' cried Professor Clutterbuck, 'you have used the Split Infinitive!' Gospel, Mrs. Leighton," said Lance as a wind-up. "She's been the Past Participle ever since."

There was this amount of truth in Lance's story: that Dr. Clutterbuck was distinguished in his own career as Professor of Geology, that his English was irreproachable; and that Mrs. Clutterbuck had practically no English, since she was hardly ever known to speak at all. She shunned society; and the same introspective gaze of the Professor, which had skimmed the Leighton drawing-room and found there only the striking personality of Mr. Leighton, skimmed his own home in a like abstracted manner, and took no notice of the most striking personality in Ridgetown--Elsie, his daughter.

It was the black cat episode which precipitated the nickname of "The Serpent." Lance had always declared that this girl had an understanding with animals which was nothing short of uncanny. He happened to read Elsie Venner, and the names being alike, and temperament on similar lines, he immediately christened her the Serpent. He caught her out at numberless pranks which were never reported to the diligent ears of Betty and May. One was that she had climbed to his bedroom and purloined a suit of clothes.

There was no end to what might be expected of this lonely little person.

Years ago, Betty and May had turned their backs on her in the cruel haphazard manner of two friends who might easily dispose of an outsider. Betty and May despised the Serpent because she "had a cheap governess," "couldn't afford to go to school," and "wore her hair in one plait."

The lonely little Serpent never properly forgave these insults.

Mrs. Leighton did not wholly encourage Lance in his tale.

"I do not think I approve of your being so down on these people," she said: "and if there is any truth in what you say, it is very tragic about poor Mrs. Clutterbuck, though she does not strike me as being a very capable person."

"Capable," asked Lance. "Who could remain capable, Mrs. Leighton, with a cold tap continually running freezing remarks down one's back. Don't you think it's a miracle she's alive?"

Mrs. Leighton preferred to remain on her smooth course of counsel.

"It never does to judge people like that," she exclaimed. "You do not know. To put it in a selfish manner, one day you may find the Clutterbucks being of more service to you than any one on earth."

She pulled at her knitting ball.

"You girls talk a great deal of romance and nonsense about people like the Dudgeons. Why don't you think something nice about that poor little Serpent for a change?"

The girls remembered not very long afterwards the prophetic nature of these remarks. That they should cultivate the Clutterbucks for any reason at all, however, seemed at that moment impossible.

Dr. Merryweather called the same afternoon.

It was one of the coincidences of life that he should immediately talk of the Clutterbucks.

"Know them?" he asked. "I think your husband does, doesn't he? Do you call on the wife at all?"

"No," answered Mrs. Leighton. "I never feel that I could get on with her very well either. Mr. Leighton meets the Professor and they talk a lot together, but it's quite away from domestic matters."

"It would be a bit of a kindness, I think," said the old Doctor, "your calling, I mean. There's too little public spirit amongst women, don't you think?"

"Oh, wouldn't it be a little impertinent perhaps to call, in that spirit?" asked Mrs. Leighton.

"Well, I don't know. The child is running wild. The parents are a pair of babies where healthy education is concerned. Result, the child has no friends, and expends her affection, she has stores of it, on her animals. A dog gets run over and dies. What do you get then? She never squeaks. Not a moan, you observe. But she sits up in that tree of hers with a cat to do any comforting she may want--and her hair begins to come out in patches."

Mrs. Leighton's knitting fell to her lap.

"Her hair is coming out in patches?" she asked in a horrified voice.

"Yes. What else would you have when a child is allowed to mope. Something is bound to happen. Clergymen are of use when a child's naughty. But when it mopes itself ill, we are called in. Yet it's a clergyman's task after all. This child, on the way to being a woman, has never had one friend. Her mother is too timid to be really friendly with any one, and the husband is wrapped in his dry-as-dust philosophy--and where are you with a tender child like that?"

"But if Mrs. Clutterbuck can't be friendly with any one, why should I call?" asked Mrs. Leighton hopelessly.

"Your girls might become friendly with the child," said he. "I'm afraid I don't make a very good clergyman."

"They call her the Serpent, you know," said Mrs. Leighton, "very naughty of them. I shall do my best, Doctor. I didn't know her hair was coming out in patches."

Dr. Merryweather might be complimented on his new profession after all. It had been a master stroke to refer to the patches. Mrs. Leighton had known of its happening after illness or great worry. That a child should suffer in this quiet moping manner seemed pathetic.

"Yet, I don't think I'm the person to do a thing of this sort," Mrs. Leighton said hopelessly to Miss Meredith later in the day. "I do so object to intrude on people. I should imagine it indelicate of any one else to do the same to myself, you know."

"Very awkward, certainly," replied Miss Meredith primly.

"Oh, mummy," said Elma, "you know how kind Miss Grace is or Miss Annie. They say 'Isn't Betty a little pale at present?' and you get her a tonic. You think nothing of that. It's just the same with the Clutterbucks. Betty ought to behave herself and go and call with you, and get the Serpent to come. I think she looks a jolly little thing."

Elma was quite alone in that opinion.

"Jolly!" said Jean, "you might as well talk of a toadstool's being jolly. Still, Betty isn't a child. She shouldn't be squabbling. Betty ought to call."

"You know Dr. Clutterbuck, wouldn't you call on his wife?" asked Mrs. Leighton of Miss Meredith.

"Oh, I'm afraid I don't know him well enough. Robin rather dislikes him--and, well, we have no young people, you see."

Miss Meredith was lame but definite.

"Then the sooner the better. Betty and I call to-morrow," said Mrs. Leighton.

They did, and to their astonishment found Mrs. Clutterbuck dimly but surely pleased. Nobody remained timid very long in Mrs. Leighton's kind presence, and the mutual subject of days long ago when it was no crime to talk of babies, broke the ice of years of reserve in Ridgetown with Mrs. Clutterbuck. The Serpent, after many pilgrimages on the part of the one maid to the garden, finally appeared. Mrs. Clutterbuck's restraint returned with the evident unwillingness of Elsie's attitude. Both retreated to the dumb condition so trying to onlookers.

The Serpent indeed paid Betty out for many months of torture. Her calm, disconcerting gaze never wavered, as she watched every movement of that ready enemy. Mrs. Leighton made her only mistake in showing definitely that she wanted to be kind to Elsie. That little lady's pale visage looked fiercely out at her and chilled the words that were intended to come.

It was as Betty described it a most "terrifying interview."

In the midst of it came a telegram to Mrs. Clutterbuck.

"Oh, you will excuse me," said she nervously. "We are expecting a friend."

During the interval of opening the envelope Elsie disappeared. It had the effect of warming Mrs. Clutterbuck to confidences once more.

"It is a great pleasure to me," said she. "My young cousin is coming. He is quite a distinguished, man. All Dr. Clutterbuck's people are distinguished, but my family are different. Except Arthur, whom Dr. Clutterbuck is quite pleased to meet. He is coming to-night."

She called the maid.

"Tell Miss Elsie it is the 5.40 train. Mr. Symington comes then."

She had a halting, staccato way of picking her small sentences, as though insecure of their effect.

"People enjoy coming to Ridgetown," said Mrs. Leighton lamely, in the endeavour to keep the wheels of conversation oiled more securely.

"Do they," asked the Professor's wife. Then she stammered a trifle. "A--a--that is--I have never had a visitor in Ridgetown till now. Dr. Clutterbuck does not care for visitors. Arthur is different from what others have been, I hope."

She seemed full of anxiety.

"Oh, I gave up long ago trying to please Mr. Leighton with my visitors," said Mrs. Leighton heartily and quite untruthfully. "Husbands must take their chance of that, you know." She rose to go.

"Please tell Dr. Clutterbuck he is never again to come to see us without you," she said, "and won't Elsie come to tea one day?"

On their departure Mrs. Clutterbuck turned to find a blazing little fury in the doorway.

"Mother," cried Elsie, "Mother! How could you! I shall never go to tea with Betty Leighton."

Her mother turned two eyes full of light on her. The light slowly died to dull patience again.

"We shall go down together to meet cousin Arthur," she said quietly. It seemed as though her bright thoughts must turn to drab colour automatically where either her husband or child was concerned.

It was characteristic of Elsie that, although blazing with wild anger and wicked little intentions, she should be unable to give voice to them at that moment. The inevitable obstinacy of her mother where the routine of the house was concerned, the drab colour of the one day which was invariably like the other, the cruel, cruel sameness of it all! It was impossible that Cousin Arthur should not be drab colour also.

"I'd rather remain here," she said at last. There was even some pleading in her tone.

"Your father said we had better meet Cousin Arthur," said her mother.

That was the remorseless end and beginning to everything. "Your father said" meant days and weeks and years of drab colour.

"Oh, let us go then," said Elsie. There was a drowning hopelessness in her voice, so great an emptiness that it was hard to believe she had merely used the words--"Let us go then."

Her mother accepted the answer without the sigh which burned in her heart because it had no outlet.

They proceeded to get ready to go out.

Mrs. Leighton and Betty by this time were chatting easily enough at the Merediths'. Mrs. Leighton had the feeling of an inexperienced general after a very indefinite victory.

"I do not possess the talent of inflicting myself gracefully on people," she said, "and the child is quite extraordinary. However, I liked the mother; she is a dear little woman."

Miss Meredith was only partially interested.

She arranged to walk home with them, and they set out in rather a slow manner.

"I can quite believe the child would be different in other surroundings," said Mrs. Leighton. "What a fine-looking man!" The one remark ran into the other automatically. In later days it seemed prophetic that the two people should be mentioned in one breath.

Mrs. Leighton was passing the station where arrivals from the train occurred. A cab was drawn up, and into this a sunburned, athletic-looking young man put some traps. Then he handed in Mrs. Clutterbuck and Elsie.

Betty was greatly impressed.

"It must be Mr. Symington," said she.

"Well, for a timid lady, she has a very man-like cousin," exclaimed Mrs. Leighton. "I don't wonder she was allowed that one visitor at least."

Miss Meredith turned her head carefully to a more slanting angle, when she clearly saw the carriage drive past.

"Do you know, Mrs. Leighton," she said quite nimbly and happily, "it seems very hard that she should not have all the visitors she wants. Dr. Merryweather is quite right. None of us have any public spirit. I think I shall call on her to-morrow."

So Miss Meredith also called on Mrs. Clutterbuck.

CHAPTER XII

The Burglar

That Miss Meredith should turn in a moment from being freezingly uninterested in the Professor's wife, to being more friendly than any one else, seemed from one point of view very noble and distinguished, from another puzzling and peculiar.

"It's a little dis-disconcerting," said Elma at Miss Grace's. "We were so pleased at first when Miss Meredith pointed out our talents to us. Now she is pointing out Mrs. Clutterbuck's. And you know, last week, we didn't think Mrs. Clutterbuck had any talents at all."

"Ah--that is one of our little tragedies," said Miss Grace simply. "That we are obliged to outlive the extravagance of new friends."

"Do you think Miss Meredith won't keep it up where we are concerned?" asked Elma anxiously. "It would be a little sad if she didn't, wouldn't it? Like deceiving us to begin with; and now she may be deceiving Mrs. Clutterbuck."

"Oh, I don't know. She may work wonders with the Professor. It must be pure goodness that prompts her, dear."

"She must be used to being taken coldly," said Elma. "The Professor glares at her, and Elsie charges straight out to the back garden every time she calls."

"Is Mr. Symington there now?" asked Miss Grace.

"No, he left in two days. Papa was charmed with him. He and the Professor and papa had an evening together when we were all at the Gardiners, and Mrs. Clutterbuck came too. Papa says Mr. Symington will make a name for himself one day. He is coming back to Ridgetown for a summer, some time soon, he liked it so much."

If only for the sudden interest taken by the Merediths in the Clutterbucks, it seemed necessary that they should become very much a part of the Leightons' life just then. But nothing could thaw the demeanour of Elsie. Dr. Merryweather found her improved slightly, but there were signs that she fretted inordinately. Nothing she did was what other girls did, and she was quite beyond the abstracted influences of her parents.

Adelaide Maud met the Professor.

"I hear you have a perfect little duck of a daughter," said she airily.

"Ha, hm," exclaimed the Professor, quite irresponsible in the matter of English for the moment. He had no real words for such a situation.

"Aren't you awfully proud of her?" asked Adelaide Maud.

The Professor recovered. That word "awfully!" It made him forget this new version of his daughter.

"So you are also in this conspiracy," whispered Lance afterwards to Adelaide Maud. "It's no good. A bomb under that fanatic is all that will move him."

But in the meantime Elsie made some moves for herself.

The Leightons were interested in their own affairs. Cuthbert was away, and Mr. Leighton had to make a run to London. He took Mabel with him and that occurrence was exciting enough in itself. As though to show up the helplessness of a family left without a man in the house, however, one night the maids roused every one in alarm. A burglar, it seems, was trying to get in at the pantry window. The girls, who were getting ready for bed, went quaking to their mother's room. Very frightened and most carefully they made their way to the vicinity of the pantry. There was certainly to be heard a faint shuffling.

"See'd him as plain as day, Miss, leaning up against the window. He moved some flower pots, and stood on 'em."

"Lock the kitchen door, telephone for the police, and light the gas," said Jean in a strained whisper.

She immediately obeyed her own orders by telephoning herself in a quick deep undertone, "Man at the pantry window trying to get in."

Then she took the taper from the shaking hands of Betty.

"I've read in Home Notes or somewhere that when burglars appear, if you light up they get frightened and go away."

They had roused Aunt Katharine who had come as company for a night or two and had gone to bed at half-past nine.

"What's the good of frightening them if you've sent for the police?" asked Aunt Katharine. "Better let them get caught red-handed." She invariably objected to being roused from her first sleep.

"Oh goodness," wailed Betty. "It sounds like murder." She felt quite thrilled.

The maids cowered shivering in the passage.

"I heard them flower pots again, Miss. 'E's either got in or--'e's----"

They distinctly heard the pantry window move.

"Well, the door between is locked," said the quiet voice of Mrs. Leighton, "and the police ought to be here very soon now."

Jean took the curlers out of her hair.

"I wish they would hurry up," said she.

Elma got under Aunt Katharine's eiderdown.

"I may as well die warm," she remarked with her teeth chattering.

There was not much inclination to jokes however, and Elma's speech was touched with a certain abandonment of fear. The situation was very trying. When the police did arrive and ran at a quick, stealthy run to the pantry window, they waited in terror for the expected shuffle and outcry.

"It's really awful," whispered Betty, clinging in despair to her mother.

"I can't think why they are so quiet," said Mrs. Leighton. "I think I must open the kitchen door."

"Oh, ma'am, please, ma'am." Cook at last became hysterical. "Don't move that door, ma'am; we've had scare enough. Let 'em catch 'em themselves."

Betty sat down on the stairs and leant her head on her hands.

"They must be arresting them," she said, "with handcuffs. And papa said they always have to read over the charge. They must be reading over the charge now, I think."

"In the dark!" said Aunt Katharine with a certain eloquent sniff.

"They have lanterns, dark lanterns. Isn't it beautiful?" said Betty.

She rose in her white dressing-gown.

"Listen," said she.

The door-bell suddenly clanged. Every one screamed except Mrs. Leighton.

"I do wish you would keep quiet," said she. "The police will think we are being murdered." She moved to the door. But again she was arrested by piercing directions.

"Talk to them at the window, mummy. They might be the burglars themselves. How are we to know? Do talk at the window."

"I'm extremely cold," said Mrs. Leighton, "and I'd rather ask them in whoever they are, than talk to them at an open window."

By the time she had finished, however, Jean, the valiant, had the window open and had discovered a policeman. They had "scoured the premises," he said, and no thief was to be found. Mrs. Leighton wrapped herself in an eiderdown quilt.

"Will you come in, please, and open my kitchen door? Cook thinks they may be there," she said.

With deep thankfulness they let in the policeman. A sergeant appeared. He was very sympathetic and reassuring. "Best not to proceed too quickly," he said in a fat, slow way. "I have a man still outside watching. So if 'e's 'ere, Miss, we'll catch 'im either way. A grand thing the telephone."

He unlocked the door, and thoroughly investigated the kitchen.

"No signs," said he, "no signs."

The Leightons recovered some of their lost dignity and crowded in. Only Jean however had the satisfaction of hair in order and curlers discarded. How brave of Jean to remember at that dreadful moment of burglars in the house!

The sergeant had gas lighted and looked extremely puzzled.

"'E 's been 'ere right enough," said he. "Window open right enough. Was it fastened?"

He turned about, but the chief evidence had departed. With the advent of the policeman, cook and retinue had suddenly remembered their costumes. Like rabbits they had scuttled, first into the larder for cover, then into their own rooms, where they donned costumes more suitable for such impressive visitors. Mrs. Leighton's eye twinkled when she found cook appear in hastily found dress.

"Did you leave the window unfastened, cook?" she asked.

Cook was sure. "It was a thing as 'ow I never forgot, ma'am, but this one night----"

Well, there seemed to be some uncertainty.

Elma's eyes during this were straying continually to a piece of notepaper lying on a table. First she thought, "It is some letter belonging to the maids." Then an impelling idea that the white paper had some other meaning forced her to pick it up. Every other person was engaged in watching the search of the sergeant and listening to his words.

"Some one has been right in this 'ere kitchen. It's the doors and windows unlatched that do it. Many a time since I've been here as sergeant, I've said to myself, 'We'll 'ave trouble yet over these unlatched windows.'"

"We have been so safe," complained Mrs. Leighton. "The poor people here too--so respectable and hard-working!"

"Drink, ma'am, drink," said the sergeant dismally, "you never know what it will do to a man."

He turned his lantern in his fat fingers.

"Oh," said Aunt Katharine with a sudden gasp, "I could stand a plain thief, hungry, may be, but master of himself. But a drunk man--it's dreadful."

She shivered and looked into corners as though one of the thieves might be asleep there. The sergeant and his companion made a thorough search of the house.

None of them noticed Elma who sat as though cast in an eternal shiver and who surreptitiously read the scrap of notepaper.

"The Trail." That was all that was written in words but nimbly drawn on a turned back corner was a snaky, sinuous serpent. It had the eyes and the accusing glare of the expression of Elsie.

Elma wondered how far she might be right in keeping that document while the fat sergeant followed up his cues, and described the burglar. He was six feet at least it seemed, to have got in at the window where he did. "Flower pots or no flower pots, no smaller man could have done it." "Fool," thought Elma. "Elsie, who can climb a drain pipe, drop from a balcony, skim walls. Elsie had a way of which he doesn't know."

One thought that ran through her mind was the wickedness of any one's having called Elsie by such a name as the Serpent, and the tragedy of her having found it out. There was some excuse for this latest wickedest prank of all. The daring of Elsie confused her. What girl would be so devoid of fear as to move out at eleven at night and act the burglar? None of their set had the pluck for it, to put it in the baldest way. The idea that she might have been caught by the fat sergeant appalled Elma. She saw the scornful, wilful eyes of the Serpent dancing. Would she care? Yet she was the girl who had moped for the death of her dog till "her hair came out in patches."

She was still staring at the trail of the Serpent when the sergeant had finished his "tour of safety." After all, it might not have been a prank of Elsie's. It might have been a six-foot burglar. This accusing serpent--well, one couldn't go on a thing of that sort. It would be so amusing too that they were had practically out of bed in such a panic. Aunt Katharine looked very worn and disturbed. She would never forgive a practical joke. Elma held the paper tight, and down in her sympathetic, plaintive little soul felt she could never accuse a fly, far less a sensitive wicked little mischief like Elsie Clutterbuck.

She could not help laughing at themselves. But after all, who was looking after that wild child now? She nearly asked the sergeant to make his way home by the side lane by which she now knew Elsie had come. Then the certainty that this self-satisfied person with his six-foot burglar would never make anything of this slippery fearless little elf burglar kept her silent.

The sergeant finished his tour with great impressiveness. They were informed they might safely go to bed. A man or two would be about to see that no one was hanging round at all. It was very ridiculous to Elma. "After all," remarked the sergeant, "you are very early people. It is only eleven o'clock now. Hardly the dead of night, ma'am!"

"We are generally less early of course," said Mrs. Leighton, "but we were alone to-night. Mr. Leighton and my son are away."