'So I am, Isabel,' I stammered; 'at least, I was.'
My stately sister looked me up and down.

'I ordered your cocoa to be sent up some time ago,' she said. 'It will have got cold. George, will you be so good as to address that label for me?'

Certainly, darling,' said George with boisterous alacrity, and sprang from his chair. I caught one glimpse of his face as, with assumed jauntiness, he strode after my sister. In that moment I pardoned him.

III.

Breakfast was pursuing its even tenor next morning. George came down in a frame of mind chastened but affable. Beau had volunteered to boil the egg, and done it to perfection, thereby averting the calamity which menaced his young joys the night before. Maimie, whom on my way upstairs I had yesterday found crying in bed, had gone to sleep soothed with the promise of a story, on which I pledged a box of chocolates. The memory of that great reconciling softened our converse this morning.

'How late the post is, Letty!' remarked my brother-in-law, breaking a silence during which he had fed Gigi, the cat, on the débris of Beau's fish.

'Very,' I assented. 'Mind, George, you are choking the cat! Oh, what will Bella say? She has thrown the bones all over the carpet!'

'She has done nothing of the kind,' said George crosslythoroughly annoyed, like a man, to find he had got into mischief. 'If it weren't for this confounded Turkey rug I could scrape them. all up in a minute.'

'Nurse says you shouldn't swear, father,' observed Beau.

I looked up quickly from the floor, on which I was kneeling to collect poor Gigi's bones, to see Mr. Whiles eyeing his son with awful intensity. Maimie, unhinged by this sign of the coming storm, burst into tears. The cat continued to choke audibly.

'If ever you dare to speak to me like that again, Beau,' said the head of the family The familiar knock intervened, and

Beau's penance remains a mystery.

Before the rap finished, George had marched off, leaving his scared offspring glued to his chair.

'May I take mummy's letters up, dad?' whined Marian between the gulps.

'Certainly not,' said her father sternly, when you are being such a silly little girl.'

The fact was, as I knew, that he was afraid to let Isabel see her.

Who is it tells us that an angry man is only to be appeased by the terror of all women belonging to him? George next

turned on me.

Your

'When you've quite done rubbing that fish into the carpet, Letitia,' he said, perhaps you'll attend to this note. correspondence with Park seems pretty brisk.'

That finished me. I got up and rounded on him. 'Pray open it yourself,' I said angrily.

I will tell Captain Park that his letters are subject to the inspection of my sister's husband.'

George bit his lip, and swung out of the room. Next moment the front door banged heavily.

IV.

The note was to intimate that Captain Park would look in about lunch-time. As I raised my eyes from the tinted sheet, wondering what was best to be done, they fell on Beau, who was making unutterable grimaces at Maimie with a view to raising her spirits.

Seeing that he, at any rate, had got over his temporary collapse, I dismissed him with Gigi into the garden. Next, drying Maimie's tears with an allusion to the promised tale, I sent her up to Isabel with the note, to see what reply was forthcoming; by which artful scheme I hoped both to secure five minutes' peace and to avoid being in person discomfited by my sister. Seldom does Heaven help the ingenious. I had not left the room two minutes when Brown came flying downstairs. Mrs. Whiles

wished to see me.

I found Isabel looking worried and pale.

'Letty,' she said with an abruptness very unusual in her, 'I don't think Captain Park can possibly come here this morning. Maimie tells me you have made her father quite angry, and

'Really,' I burst in, for even the cat will turn when accused of breaking a poker, 'if George can't even swear without its being put down to me

'S-s-h!' said my sister, horrified, with a glance at the child.

'Then send Maimie out of the room,' I said sharply.

The tearful big eyes disappeared from above the bedside, and we were left tête-à-tête.

'Really, Isabella,' I protested, the moment the door closed, 'I declare this is too much for anything. I was down by half-past seven to see that George's breakfast was right. I had made Maimie quiet. I saw that Beau behaved himself. We were going like clockwork, till suddenly George chose to throw the cat's fish-bones all over the carpet, and swear at me the moment I saw him. He was most abominably rude about Captain Park's letter. Why not send me out of the house straight away? I shall find something to do, or you can pension me off. I don't see why I should stay here to be hustled about all day long, and called a nuisance by everybody.'

'My dear Letty!' said Isabel faintly. She paused to take breath, while I glared at her. My dear girl,' she continued, 'what is all this blood and thunder about? George is never out of temper with me. How can I help wondering why it should happen so constantly when I'm away? You know perfectly well that we like having you with us. We shouldn't know what to do if you went. Why can't you settle down and take things more quietly?'

'Why can't Captain Park come to lunch?' I retorted.

'I've told you already, child,' said my sister. 'George hates visitors to lunch at the best of times; and to-day of all days, when he has been put out over that very man, I don't see how we can possibly think of it.'

'I don't see how we can possibly make such fools of ourselves,' said I, as to tell the wretched man there's no lunch for him.' 'Couldn't you write and say we shall be out?' said Mrs. Whiles.

'How could I?' was my indignant reply ; we told him only last Wednesday that we should all be in.'

'If only George had been lunching at his office!' said my sister with a weary sigh, for once not quite mistress of the situation.

'Why not send George a note to stop away?' I suggested. Isabel flared up at once.

'You seem to forget that this house is my husband's,' she said. 'Very well,' I said gloomily, 'I'll send a line to Captain Park and explain that fact.'

'No, no!' she rejoined, almost before the words were out of my mouth. You can't do that-there's nothing to explain. If the man wants to come, come he must. I'll keep George from raging in public.'

I flung my arms round Mrs. Whiles and embraced her. That seemed to complete my dainty sister's undoing: she collapsed on to her lace pillows and lay there.

'Can I do any errands for you up Bond Street, Bell dear?' I asked in an indifferent tone, turning from her to gather up the breakfast things.

'Bond Street?' she said; 'are you going shopping?'

'Yes,' I replied. You see, Mrs. Gummidge might be calling this afternoon, and that green blouse is really very shabbyand

'Don't get anything too smart for Mrs. G., Letty,' said my sister as I paused. She likes things plain.'

There was something in Bell's voice that made me look sharply over my shoulder-to intercept on her face that particular smile which is my sister's next approach to a broad grin.

'Don't be too clever, Isabel,' I said, with all I could of satire.

It was I, however, who ended the conversation by turning to leave the room with the tray.

'Letty!' Mrs. Whiles called out, just as I was closing the door. I put my head in.

Be sure you are back by one,' she urged. 'We shall have all the fat in the fire if George has to wait for you.'

V.

Which of Ahriman's imps made me twenty minutes late that morning I never shall know. The door opened, in answer to my knock, to disclose Mr. Whiles at the back of it.

'Late as usual,' he remarked with studied quietness; and your sister with a bad headache, racking her brains for something to say to that jackass.'

'Why don't you go in and bray to him, George?' I suggested. 'It would do quite as well.'

My daughter,' rejoined Mr. Whiles, will be sent to a school where they teach manners.'

'Excellent,' said I. 'She can then missionise her papa.

Wherewith I retreated upstairs. It was clearly absurd to make oneself late over buying a blouse and then economise time by not wearing it.

George's wrath had gone down to his shoe-leather during this interval, and the noise of his boots, as he paced the linoleum, drowned my own fairy tread when returning. I resolved to take him by stealth.

'Don't be cross with me, George!' I said pleadingly, nestling up to him from the rear, while my crisp silk brushed his sleeve. He turned and looked down at me. Now George is a human man under thirty; moreover, Isabel was safe with the jackass.

'Aggravating little noodle!' he said; but he patted my

cheek.

Lunch went off very peacefully. Following the signal-code of Bell's speedwell eyes, George ejaculated fit comments when called on. Even when Captain Park-seemingly dazed with much eyeing of my lilac sheen-made disparaging remarks about the militia, whereof George is an officer-even then my brother's emotions carried him no further than the beladling of his lambcutlet with mustard. Howbeit, on the stroke of two he rose, and on plea of important letters fled away to the study.

'Lettice,' said Isabel in the drawing-room, where we three sat sipping our coffee, I am afraid I must go and lie down. My head drives me distracted. Captain Park, you will pardon me? Suppose you make Lettice show you the cyclamens!' And she swept through the door he held open.

Our visitor turned to me with a look of embarrassment. I felt suddenly wicked.

'Captain Park,' I said, looking him straight in the eyes, 'shall we go and do cyclamens?'

'Please,' he answered; 'unless I impose too much on your kindness, Miss Allcroft.'

'Not at all,' said I; it is woman's sphere. This way to the greenhouse! Don't fall over the pug. . . . You will observe,' I continued, there are five lovely cyclamens. This one is white, those two have a tinge of pink, and the others of lilac. The white one is the biggest, and they all have got rather round leaves. We give them water sometimes, and they grow up in pots. They all sit on this shelf and get sunned in the morning, and the man locks them up of an evening. They look nice on a drawing-room table, and we sometimes bring them in for At-homes. They