"I promise not to tell any one--you know you can trust me."

"Well, she brings people up to her room."

"You don't mean to her bedroom?"

"She says you can't call it a bedroom, but she sleeps there for all that. She covers up the bed and makes it look like a couch; she keeps birds and dogs there; Flossie had her puppies there. That's her room,"

said Maggie, lifting one of the boughs. "I shouldn't be surprised if Jimmy were there with her now."

The foliage glinted in the sunset, and as Maggie stood pointing, still holding the bough, the picture flashed upon Frank, and he said: "Oh, how pretty you are now! How I should like to paint you!" And a moment after he said, interested, solely interested in sentimental affection, "Sally's ideas of love seem to me very funny; if she really loves Meason, why doesn't she marry him?"

"He has no money, and father would never hear of it."

"Never hear of it! If I loved a girl, nothing in the world would prevent my marrying her."

"I wonder if that's true," said Maggie, and she let go the bough and stood facing him, her hands clasped behind her back.

"Of course it is. What is life for if it isn't to get the woman we love?"

"It is nice to hear you say so; but I am afraid very few young men think like you nowadays. One woman is the same as another to them."

"I cannot understand any one thinking so. If it were so, the whole charm would be lost."

So the young people talked, and lost in the charm of each thrilling minute, they walked through the shadows and darkening leaves. The soft garden echoed with the sound of a girl's voice crying, "Cuckoo, cuckoo," and the white dresses flew over the sward, and the young men ran after them and caught them. They were playing hide and seek.

Excited beyond endurance, Triss barked loudly, and forms were seen flying precipitately.

"Tie him up to this tree," said Maggie.

"No, no, better take him to the house," said Frank; "it would make him savage to tie him up."

When the ninth bottle of champagne had been opened, and the supper table was noisy, Frank whispered to Maggie, "Did you ever see _Macbeth_?"

"Yes, but why?"

"Because I can't help thinking what a splendid occasion it would be for Banquo's ghost to appear."

Maggie pressed his hand and laughed.

Soon after the sound of wheels was heard. Grace turned pale, Sally said: "Who would have thought it?" A moment after Mr. Brookes, with Berkins and w.i.l.l.y behind him, entered. He stood amazed, and seeing that the tears were mounting to his eyes, Maggie said: "Father, how tired and faint you look. We thought you wouldn't be coming home to- night. Do sit down and have a gla.s.s of wine." But neither winning words nor ways could soothe this storm, and in reply to a question from Berkins, Mr. Brookes declared pa.s.sionately that he knew none of the young men who came to his house.

V

"Father's just gone downstairs. I think we had better wait a minute or two. In that way we shall escape a scolding. Father won't miss the ten o'clock."

"Not a bad idea. You are always up to some cunning dodge. What's the time?"

"Twenty minutes to nine. I'll slip down the pa.s.sage and tell Grace to go down and give him his breakfast. He won't say anything to her; he knows well that since Fatty went to India she wouldn't see a soul if she could help it."

"Father never says anything to you either; you tell him a lot of lies, and leave him to understand that I do everything."

"That's not true; I never speak against you to father; but at the same time I must say that if it weren't for you we could do as we liked.

You don't try to manage father."

"Manage him, indeed! that's what I can't bear in you, you're always trying to manage some one; I hate the word."

"You got out of bed the wrong side this morning. However, I must go and tell Grace to go down at once, or father will be ringing for us."

"What did she say?" said Sally, when Maggie returned.

"'Tis all right; I got her to go, and she said she was always being made a cat's-paw of. I a.s.sure you it wasn't easy to persuade her to go down to father, but I told her she might be the means of averting a very serious row."

"I suppose you said there was no counting on what answers I might make to father?"

This was exactly what Maggie had said.

"Very well; you are always objecting to what I do, and the way I do it. I wish you would go and do things yourself. You think of nothing but yourself, or some young man you are after. I wouldn't do what you did yesterday. I wouldn't go sneaking round the garden with a young man I had never seen before."

Maggie shrugged her shoulders and went on dressing. Sally, who had taken a seat on the bed, watched her. She thought how she might best pursue the quarrel, but her stomach called her thoughts from her sister, and she said: "I don't know how you feel, but I am dying of hunger. What time is it now?"

"Nine o'clock."

"Another half-hour. I suppose he won't start before the half-hour."

"Miss," said the maid, knocking at the door, "Mr. Brookes wants to know if you are coming down to breakfast."

"Say that we are not nearly ready; that there's no use waiting for us."

"I think I had better go back to my room," said Sally.

"I think you had. I wish you wouldn't bring that horrid little dog into my room. She made a mess here the other day."

"That I am sure she didn't. Flossie is the cleanest dog in the world."

"Clean or unclean, I would rather not have her in my room. There she is trying to drink out of my jug. Get away, you little beast!"

Sally caught up her dog, and marched out of the room, slamming the door after her.

"At last I have got rid of her," thought Maggie, and she rolled and pinned up the last plait of her black hair, but she did not go down to breakfast until the wheels grated on the gravel and the carriage was heard moving away. Then she begged Grace to tell her what her father had said.

"He said his children were persecuting him, that he had not had an hour's peace since their poor mother died."

"Fudge! Mother knew how to keep him in order. Do you remember when she threw the carving knife?"

"Sally, for shame! How can you speak of poor mother so?"