Lady Jane Follitt had last seen the balloon driving through rain-clouds at dusk, somewhere between Peterborough and York. It had not been nearly such good sport as she had anticipated, for the breeze had been light during the early part of the afternoon, and she had been obliged to go slowly in order not to outrun the aËronauts, and when they had begun to travel faster it had grown dark, and she could not see them even with her searchlight! She made up her mind that there was nothing in ballooning after all, and she was wet and tired when she got back to London late at night, and found Claude and her husband waiting for her. The Colonel talked of going down to King’s Follitt the next day.

“And leave me here to do my shopping alone?” said Lady Jane indignantly. “Not much! We’ll go down in the motor on Thursday, if you don’t mind.”

She had almost always done her shopping alone, but that did not matter. When she said “if you don’t mind” in that tone, the mild Colonel knew his place and did his duty.

Claude’s match was not over yet, and he must stay in town another day; Jocelyn was with the Trevelyans, and was hardly likely to get home for twenty-four hours or more; but the Colonel was at leisure, and could not be allowed to go home alone in order to make love to Miss Scott. Lady Jane had never felt any anxiety about Lionel, because he knew the governess’s father, and had been just as kind to her when she was hideous.

So he and Ellen had another day to themselves, and though she hardly let the girls go out of her sight, the two had plenty of opportunity of talking together. The result of their confabulations was that Ellen was to do her best to get away from King’s Follitt with Lady Jane’s consent, but that if she did not succeed within a fortnight Lionel should tell his mother that he intended to marry the girl, and if there was a terrible fuss, then it could not be helped, that was all. Ellen, on mature consideration, made up her mind that it would be cowardly to run away, but that she would leave after the inevitable interview with the infuriated Lady Jane.

That was what they both thought best, after long consideration, and they made up their minds to do it.

Herbert Scott was determined that his adopted child should not suffer a bitter disappointment after her expectations had been raised to the highest pitch, and he accordingly took care that no hint of what was coming should reach her, till all was settled beyond any possibility of failure—at least, if that could be managed. His sense of humour, too, was delighted by the prospect of the surprise which the change in her prospects would produce in the Follitt household, accompanied as it would be by the announcement of her long-standing engagement to Lionel. But after all, the excellent Mr. Scott himself could not quite believe that a noble estate and a good old name had been the rightful dowry of the poor little doorstep baby he had taken in so long ago. His only fear for the future had been lest her own father should become sane again, as suddenly as he had gone mad, and claim his daughter; and when Dr. Steele wrote him that old Trevelyan was dead, Herbert Scott made incomprehensible observations aloud to himself in several oriental dialects, not one of them expressive of regret.

Things did not turn out exactly as he expected. Lady Jane and the Colonel came home in due time, when the shopping in London was done. Claude returned in a very good humour from the cricket-match, for Yorkshire had won and he himself had brought up his average; but he went off almost immediately to ride the promised steeplechase. Jocelyn came back one morning, rather silent and uncommunicative, to claim the fifty pounds he had won of Lionel, and immediately departed again, saying that he would write. He said something about having been in a madhouse, which the others took for chaff.

Therefore, when the crisis came the two younger sons were not at home, and it happened in this way: the Colonel lost his head, Lady Jane lost her temper, Lionel lost his patience, and Miss Scott lost her position as governess.

There was no doubt about Colonel Follitt’s admiration for the once Undesirable One. He talked to her at table, he brought her books from the library, he accidentally found himself in the way when she passed; and one day he announced his intention of going for a walk with her and his two daughters, as Lionel had done several times.

“That you shall not do!” said Lady Jane with severity.

“Why not, my dear?” asked her mild husband.

“It’s not decent,” answered Lady Jane with disgust. “I won’t have it!”

“Really!” cried the Colonel, with polite surprise. “If a man cannot walk out with his own daughters——”

“Not with Miss Scott. Thank goodness, I still have some authority! The idea of such a thing! Besides, it’s growing on you. When vice doesn’t disappear it always grows worse with old age.”

“Old age, indeed!” The Colonel was mildly indignant.

“Now, that Miss Kirk,” Lady Jane exclaimed, not heeding him, “at least she was pretty. No one ever denied that, I suppose. Well, that was some excuse; but it’s positively disgusting to see a man of sixty——”

“Fifty-five,” interrupted the Colonel.

“—of nearly fifty-six devoting himself to a miserable, dowdy little rat of a London governess, who came here with a blotchy face and a hump on one shoulder, and her hair drawn back like a skinned rabbit’s!”

“Dear me!” exclaimed the Colonel, with exasperating mildness.

“And besides,” Lady Jane concluded, sticking up her aristocratic nose in wrath, “she’s distinctly plebeian!”

“I’m sorry, mother, but you’re quite mistaken,” said Lionel, looking up from his paper, and bending his brows. “She talks just as we do, and nobody could possibly tell that she didn’t belong to our set.”

Lady Jane stared at her eldest son in surprise. They were all three in the mess-room after luncheon. “My dear Lionel,” she retorted, with pitying scorn, “if you don’t know a lady when you see one, I really can’t teach you the difference, can I?”

“Miss Scott is a lady in every way,” Lionel answered, with a good deal of emphasis, and fixing his eyes on his mother’s in an odd way.

“Good heaven!” cried Lady Jane. “I believe you’re another of her victims!”

“I am going to marry Miss Scott in June,” Lionel said, rising suddenly, and looking down at her and his father—for he was very tall.

“What?” cried Lady Jane, her jaw dropping.

“What?” cried the Colonel, no longer mild.

And the walls of the mess-room echoed “what” in the name of the absent members of the family.

“Are you quite mad?” asked Lady Jane, breathless in her amazed surprise.

“Impudent puppy!” the Colonel cried, getting red in the face. “My dear, the girl must leave the house this instant!”

“I’ll send for her and tell her so at once!”

“It’s not of the least use to get so excited,” said Lionel, calmly sitting down and taking up his paper again. “We shall be married in June, and there’s nothing more to be said.”

Thereupon he appeared to go on reading, without paying any more attention to his father and mother.

“This is monstrous!” Lady Jane was beside herself. “Lionel!” She came and stood beside his chair. “You’re not in earnest! This is some silly attempt at a joke!”

“Drop it, my boy!” cried the Colonel, taking the cue from his wife.

“I’m not joking.” Lionel looked up quietly. “You’ll be very fond of her some day, when you get over the idea that she’s been governess to the girls. Really, there’s nothing to be said. I made up my mind long ago; and as the estate is entailed you can’t even cut me off with a shilling! Happily, you are quite powerless, for we can live very comfortably on my five hundred a year.”

Lady Jane glared, and the Colonel put on that singularly disagreeable expression which has come into use amongst Englishmen since they gave up swearing as a means of showing what they are thinking about. It is a particularly unpleasant look, and bodes evil when it appears.

“Miss Scott will go at once, of course,” Lionel added, as they said nothing. “I only ask you not to be rude to her.”

“As if one could be rude to a governess!” cried Lady Jane, stalking off with her head in the air and going out.

“All that Sanskrit stuff has gone to your head, my boy,” said the Colonel, following her.

Lady Jane went to her morning room and rang the bell. Her hand trembled a little. “Ask Miss Scott to come to me before going out with the young ladies,” she said to the footman.

Ellen lost no time in answering the summons, and appeared dressed for walking, and wearing a plain grey felt hat, which happened to be very becoming. As soon as she entered, she saw that Lady Jane was in a rage, and guessed that it concerned her.

“My son has just given me to understand that he has—er—agreed to marry you. What have you to say to this amazing statement?”

Miss Scott looked much taller than usual, and held her head quite as high as Lady Jane herself; but she answered very quietly, and almost gently. “Yes,” she said, “it’s quite true. That’s all I have to say.”

“And you have the assurance to tell me so to my face?” cried Lady Jane.

“Oh, yes, since it’s true,” answered the young girl sweetly.

“It’s not to be believed!”

Lady Jane’s face was as hard as a portrait done in enamel; her eyes glittered like pale sapphires, and she began to walk up and down the room, looking straight in front of her.

“I’m afraid you must believe it, unless your son changes his mind,” said Miss Scott with great gentleness.

“Oh, he shall change his mind! Never fear! A governess! There are laws to prevent such things—I’m sure there are!”

“And a foundling, too,” said Ellen, more sweetly than ever. “I’m sure you will think that makes it much worse,” she added, as Lady Jane stopped suddenly in her walk and glared at her. “Yes, I was left on Mr. Scott’s doorstep early one morning when I was a baby, and he adopted me and gave me his name, and called me Ellen. It’s rather dreadful, isn’t it?”

“Dreadful! It’s vile, the way you have played on his feelings in secret and led him to this! But, thank Heaven, he is my son. He must have some sense, somewhere!”

“He has a great deal,” said Miss Scott, unmoved. “I’m sure of it.”

“If anything could make matters worse, it is your brazen assurance,” cried Lady Jane, beside herself. “There is no reason why I should put up with it another moment, and I shall expect you to leave the house in an hour. Do you understand?”

“I was going to ask your leave to do so,” answered Ellen; “for the truth is, I have some very urgent business in town, and my solicitors have written begging me to come at once.”

Lady Jane’s face assumed an expression of blank astonishment. “Your solicitors! What nonsense is this?”

“In view of the fact that Lionel has told you about our engagement, it may have some importance—even in your eyes.”

There was something so extraordinarily calm about the young person’s manner, that Lady Jane began to take another view of the matter. “I believe you must be an escaped lunatic,” she said with deliberation, and fixing her cold eyes on the governess’s pretty face.

But nothing happened; she did not shrink and cower under the glance, as Lady Jane supposed that an escaped lunatic would, on being found out.

“Perhaps you would like to see the last letter I have received?” said Miss Scott.

Lady Jane hesitated, for it seemed beneath her dignity to prolong the interview. She would have turned her back on the governess if she had not been made really curious by her calm and dignified manner, and by her allusion to “solicitors.” Just then, too, it occurred to the injured matron that the girl might have committed some offence for which she was to be tried, and that the “solicitors” were those whom her adopted father had engaged for the defence. This was ingenious, if it was nothing else. Lady Jane, who was both very angry and at the same time very curious, suddenly contracted her eyelids, as if she were short-sighted, and held her head higher than ever. “I am willing to look at the letter,” she said, “on the mere chance that it may show your—er—atrocious conduct—in a somewhat less—er—unfavourable light!”

Miss Scott smiled sweetly, and produced a large envelope from the inside of her coat—for, being a governess, she possessed a pocket. She handed the paper to Lady Jane, who saw at a glance that it was a genuine solicitor’s letter, from a highly respectable firm of whom she had often heard. The envelope was addressed to “Miss Ellen Scott,” but when Lady Jane took out and unfolded the contents, she saw that they were addressed to “Miss Diana Trevelyan.”

“Trevelyan?” she cried angrily. “Diana Trevelyan? What absurdity is this? What have you to do with any Diana Trevelyan, pray?”

“‘You? The daughter of Sir Randolph? You’re mad!’”