It is quite four o'clock, and therefore two hours later. Barbara has returned, and has learned the secret of Joyce's pale looks and sad eyes, and is now standing on the hearthrug looking as one might who has been suddenly wakened from a dream that had seemed only too real.

"And you mean to say—you really mean, Joyce, that you refused him?"

"Yes. I actually had that much common-sense," with a laugh that has something of bitterness in it.

"But I thought—I was sure——"

"I know you thought he was my ideal of all things admirable. And you thought wrong."

"But if not he——"

"Barbara!" says Joyce sharply. "Was it not enough that you should have made one mistake? Must you insist on making another?"

"Well, never mind," says Mrs. Monkton hastily. "I'm glad I made that one, at all events; and I'm only sorry you have felt it your duty to make your pretty eyes wet about it Good gracious!" looking put of the window, "who is coming now? Dicky Browne and Mr. Courtenay and those detestable Blakes. Tommy," turning sharply to her first-born. "If you and Mabel stay here you must be good. Do you hear now, good! You are not to ask a single question or touch a thing in the room, and you are to keep Mabel quiet. I am not going to have Mrs. Blake go home and say you are the worst behaved children she ever met in her life. You will stay, Joyce?" anxiously to her sister.

"Oh, I suppose so. I couldn't leave you to endure their tender mercies alone."

"That's a darling girl! You know I never can get on with that odious woman. Ah! how d'ye do, Mrs. Blake? How sweet of you to come after last night's fatigue."

"Well, I think a drive a capital thing after being up all night," says the new-comer, a fat, little, ill-natured woman, nestling herself into the cosiest chair in the room. "I hadn't quite meant to come here, but I met Mr. Browne and Mr. Courtenay, so I thought we might as well join forces, and storm you in good earnest. Mr. Browne has just been telling me that Lady Swansdown left the Court this morning. Got a telegram, she said, summoning her to Gloucestershire. Never do believe in these sudden telegrams myself. Stayed rather long in that anteroom with Lord Baltimore last night."

"Didn't know she had been in any anteroom," says Mrs. Monkton, coldly. "I daresay her mother-in-law is ill again. She has always been attentive to her."

"Not on terms with her son, you know; so Lady Swansdown hopes, by the attention you speak of, to come in for the old lady's private fortune. Very considerable fortune, I've heard."

"Who told you?" asks Mr. Browne, with a cruelly lively curiosity. "Lady Swansdown?"

"Oh, dear no!"

Pause! Dicky still looking expectant and Mrs. Blake uncomfortable. She is racking her brain to try and find some person who might have told her, but her brain fails her.

The pause threatens to be ghastly, when Tommy comes to the rescue.

He had been told off as we know to keep Mabel in a proper frame of mind, but being in a militant mood has resented the task appointed him. He has indeed so far given in to the powers that be that he has consented to accept a picture book, and to show it to Mabel, who is looking at it with him, lost in admiration of his remarkable powers of description. Each picture indeed, is graphically explained by Tommy at the top of his lungs, and in extreme bad humor.

He is lying on the rug, on his fat stomach, and is becoming quite a martinet.

"Look at this!" he is saying now. "Look! do you hear, or I won't stay and keep you good any longer. Here's a picture about a boat that's going to be drowned down in the sea in one minnit. The name on it is"—reading laboriously—"'All hands to the pump.' And" with considerable vicious enjoyment—"it isn't a bit of good for them, either. Here"—pointing to the picture again with a stout forefinger—"here they're 'all-handsing' at the pump. See?"

"No, I don't, and I don't want to," says Mabel, whimpering and hiding her eyes. "Oh, I don't like it; it's a horrid picture! What's that man doing there in the corner?" peeping through her fingers at a dead man in the foreground. "He is dead! I know he is!"

"Of course he is," says Tommy. "And"—valiantly—"I don't care a bit, I don't."

"Oh, but I do," says Mabel. "And there's a lot of water, isn't there?"

"There always is in the sea," says Tommy.

"They'll all be drowned, I know they will," says Mabel, pushing away the book. "Oh, I hate 'handsing'; turn over, Tommy, do! It's a nasty cruel, wicked picture!"

"Tommy, don't frighten Mabel," says his mother anxiously.

"I'm not frightening her. I'm only keeping her quiet," says Tommy defiantly.

"Hah-hah!" says Mr. Courtenay vacuously.

"How wonderfully unpleasant children can make themselves," says Mrs. Blake, making herself 'wonderfully unpleasant' on the spot. "Your little boy so reminds me of my Reginald. He pulls his sister's hair merely for the fun of hearing her squeal!"

"Tommy does not pull Mabel's hair," says Barbara a little stiffly. "Tommy, come here to Mr. Browne; he wants to speak to you."

"I want to know if you would like a cat?" says Mr. Browne, drawing Tommy to him.

"I don't want a cat like our cat," says Tommy, promptly. "Ours is so small, and her tail is too thin. Lady Baltimore has a nice cat, with a tail like mamma's furry for her neck."

"Well, that's the very sort of a cat I can get you if you wish."

"But is the cat as big as her tail?" asks Tommy, still careful not to commit himself.

"Well, perhaps not quite," says Mr. Browne gravely. "Must it be quite as big?"

"I hate small cats," says Tommy. "I want a big one! I want—" pausing to find a suitable simile, and happily remembering the kennel outside—"a regular setter of a cat!"

"Ah," says Mr. Browne, "I expect I shall have to telegraph to India for a tiger for you."

"A real live tiger?" asks Tommy, with distended eyes and a flutter of wild joy at his heart, the keener that some fear is mingled with it. "A tiger that eats people up?"

"A man-eater," says Mr. Browne, solemnly. "It would be the nearest approach I know to the animal you have described. As you won't have the cat that Lady Baltimore will give you, you must only try to put up with mine."

"Poor Lady Baltimore!" lisps Mrs. Blake. "What a great deal she has to endure."

"Oh, she's all right to-day," returns Mr. Browne, cheerfully. "Toothache any amount better this morning."

Mrs. Blake laughs in a little mincing way.

"How droll you are," says she. "Ah! if it were only toothache that was the matter But—" silence very effective, and a profound sigh.

"Toothache's good enough for me," says Dicky. "I should never dream of asking for more." He glances here at Joyce, and continues sotto voce, "You look as if you had it."

"No," returns she innocently. "Mine is neuralgia. A rather worse thing, after all."

"Yes. You can get the tooth out," says he.

"Have you heard," asks Mrs. Blake, "that Mr. Beauclerk is going to marry that hideous Miss Maliphant. Horrid Manchester person, don't you know! Can't think what Lady Baltimore sees in her"—with a giggle—"her want of beauty. Got rather too much of pretty women I should say."

"I'm really afraid," says Dicky, "that somebody has been hoaxing you this time, Mrs. Blake;" genially. "I happen to know for a fact that Miss Maliphant is not going to marry Beauclerk."

"Indeed!" snappishly. "Ah, well really he is to be congratulated, I think. Perhaps," with a sharp glance at Joyce, "I mistook the name of the young lady; I certainly heard he was going to be married."

"So am I,"' says Mr. Browne, "some time or other; we are all going to get married one day or another. One day, indeed, is as good as another. You have set us such a capital example that we're safe to follow it."

Mr. and Mrs. Blake being a notoriously unhappy couple, the latter grows rather red here; and Joyce gives Dicky a reproachful glance, which he returns with one of the wildest bewilderment. What can she mean?

"Mr. Dysart will be a distinct loss when he goes to India," continues Mrs. Blake quickly. "Won't be back for years, I hear, and leaving so soon, too. A disappointment, I'm told! Some obdurate fair one! Sort of chest affection, don't you know, ha-ha! India's place for that sort of thing. Knock it out of him in no time. Thought he looked rather down in the mouth last night. Not up to much lately, it has struck me. Seen much of him this time, Miss Kavanagh?"

"Yes. A good deal," says Joyce, who has, however, paled perceptibly.

"Thought him rather gone to seed, eh? Rather the worse for wear."

"I think him always very agreeable," says Joyce, icily.

A second most uncomfortable silence ensues. Barbara tries to get up a conversation with Mr. Courtenay, but that person, never brilliant at any time, seems now stricken with dumbness. Into this awkward abyss Mabel plunges this time. Evidently she has been dwelling secretly on Tommy's comments on their own cat, and is therefore full of thought about that interesting animal.

"Our cat is going to have chickens!" says she, with all the air of one who is imparting exciting intelligence.

This astounding piece of natural history is received with varied emotions by the listeners. Mr. Browne, however, is unfeignedly charmed with it, and grows as enthusiastic about it as even Mabel can desire.

"You don't say so! When? Where?" demands he with breathless eagerness.

"Don't know," says Mabel seriously. "Last time 'twas in nurse's best bonnet; but," raising her sweet face to his, "she says she'll be blowed if she has them there this time!"

"Mabel!" cries her mother, crimson with mortification.

"Yes?" asked Mabel, sweetly.

But it is too much for every one. Even Mrs. Blake gives way for once to honest mirth, and under cover of the laughter rises and takes her departure, rather glad of the excuse to get away. She carries off Mr. Courtenay.

Dicky having lingered a little while to see that Mabel isn't scolded, goes too; and Barbara, with a sense of relief, turns to Joyce.

"You look so awful tired," says she. "Why don't you go and lie down?"

"I thought, on the contrary, I should like to go out for a walk," says Joyce indifferently. "I confess my head is aching horribly. And that woman only made me worse."

"What a woman! I wonder she told so many lies. I wonder if——"

"If Mr. Dysart is going to India," supplies Joyce calmly. "Very likely. Why not. Most men in the army go to India."

"True," say Mrs. Monkton with a sigh. Then in a low tone: "I shall be sorry for him."

"Why? If he goes"—coldly—"it is by his own desire. I see nothing to be sorry about."

"Oh, I do," says Barbara. And then, "Well, go out, dearest. The air will do you good."