"Oh, I say, what tons of luggage!" cried a childish voice.

"Yes, we are off first thing in the morning," said Nellie; and then followed some whispering, with a few words breaking out here and there:

"Miss Yard wants to be among her old friends again ... a great secret, you know" ... "of course I shan't tell anyone, but Sidney will be" ...

"I'm so sorry, but it can't be helped" ... "there's such a thing as the post" ... "good-bye! I'm so glad you came."

The door shut, George jumped out of the window in time to see the young girl racing down the lane; then he returned to the house and asked sternly, "What's the meaning of this?"

"Really and truly I don't know," replied Nellie. "But I am at least satisfied that Highfield needs a missionary."

"Now you are shuffling. You invited that miserable little creature into my house, you encouraged her to cross my doorstep, I heard you laughing and talking as if you were enjoying yourself. You actually gave away the secret about Drivelford. Come outside!" said George, as if he meant to fight.

"I mean you can't believe a word that Highfield says," she explained, following obediently. "That little girl's as good as gold."

"To begin with, who is she?" George demanded, scowling like the Dismal Gibcat.

"That is more than I can tell you. She told me her name was Christina--sometimes Chrissie--but those who love her generally call her Teenie."

"What did she want?"

"She invited me to tea at Black Anchor Farm on Sunday. She also promised to chaperon me."

"The infamous urchin!" groaned George.

"I should have gone," she said steadily.

"Then you must be altogether--absolutely wrong somewhere. Go there to tea! Sit opposite that wicked old man, beside that abandoned youth, and positively touching that shameless child who hasn't got a surname! After all that has pa.s.sed between us, after all your promises to me, after all that I have done for you--all my kindness and self-sacrifice--you would drink tea out of their teapot, and let yourself be talked about as one of the young women of Black Anchor!"

"My suspicions are not quite gone. But directly I saw little Miss Christina I knew the horrible things we have heard are all lies. She's a young lady. She goes to school at Cheltenham."

"That makes it worse. You know old Brock--he's an ordinary labourer.

While Sidney is a common young fellow who can't even speak English. They are not fit to lick the polish off your shoes."

"But then I don't want the polish licked off my shoes; it's enough trouble putting it on. I do not understand the Brocks, and I can't imagine why Miss Teenie wouldn't tell me her whole name. If I could have gone to Black Anchor on Sunday, I might have found out something."

"These Dollies and Teenies, and painted females, are no relations of such common chaps. And I won't have you speaking to any of them."

"Really!" she murmured with great deliberation.

"No, I won't; and they are not to write either--I heard something about the post. Just suppose you had thrown yourself away utterly, suppose you had lowered yourself so fearfully as to have got engaged to this Sidney instead of to a Christian gentleman--how awful it would have been!"

Nellie changed colour and gazed significantly at her left hand, which was unadorned by any lover's circlet.

"You would not only have lost me, which would have been bad enough, but I should have lost the furniture, all my dear uncle's precious antiquities and priceless curios--"

"Which would have been far worse," she added.

"It would have been dreadful. Now I have secured all the furniture to you--"

"I did that for myself; I got it from Mr. Taverner," she interrupted.

"But I advised Aunt Sophy to make her will. Of course I was thinking of myself--we must do that sometimes--but I was quite unselfish in the matter. I knew if the furniture was left to you, it would be the same as--as--"

"Be careful, or you'll spoil the unselfishness," she broke in gently.

"Things have come to a head now," George continued. "You are going away tomorrow, and, of course, you will never see these horrible people again. We must do something, Nellie--we must be reckless, as we are both getting on in life. This is the third of September, and I do think before the month is out we ought to--I mean something should be done.

Shall we settle on the last day of the month? I have quite made up my mind to live with Aunt Sophy; it will be good for her, and cheap for us."

"This is what the Americans call a proposition," she murmured.

"Then when she dies, there will be the furniture all round us. And Kezia can go on living with us, imagining that the furniture is hers, until she too departs in peace. We can teach Aunt Sophy how to save money, and show her how to invest it for our benefit. It looks to me as if we'd got the future ready-made."

"Is there anything very serious in all this?" she asked.

"Well, it's not like a bad illness, or any great disaster. It's comfort, happiness, all that sort of thing. When we are in for a jolly good time, we don't regard that as serious."

"But what is to happen on the last day of the month?"

"It has just occurred to me we might do the right thing--obviously the right thing. Don't you think so, Nellie? What's the good of waiting, and wearing ourselves out with ceaseless labour? On the thirty-first of this month, the last of summer, let us make the plunge."

"Do you mean it?" she asked, with a queer little laugh, which was perhaps a trifle spiteful; but then the lover was so very callous.

"I have thought over it a great many times, and I've always arrived at the same conclusion."

"But what do you want me to do on the thirty-first?"

"To go to church."

"I go every Sunday."

"For a special purpose."

"I always have one."

"To hear the service read."

"Will that make any difference to me?"

"Why, of course it will."

"It will change my present B. into a lifelong D.?"

"That's a very artistic way of putting it," said George, rubbing his hands.

"On the thirty-first?"

"It will suit me nicely."