When Mrs. Maxwell learned, in the morning, that Mr. Maitland was indisposed and could not leave his room, that the Commodore had gone off in the night, and Mark and Mrs. Trafford had started by daybreak, her amazement became so insupportable that she hastened from one of her guests to the other, vainly asking them to explain these mysteries.

“What a fidgety old woman she is!” said Beck Graham, who had gone over to Bella Lyle, then a prisoner in her room from a slight cold. “She has been rushing over the whole house, inquiring if it be possible that my father has run away with Alice, that your brother is in pursuit of them, and Mr. Maitland taken poison in a moment of despair. At all events, she has set every one guessing and gossiping at such a rate that all thought of archery is forgotten, and even our private theatricals have lost their interest in presence of this real drama.”

“How absurd!” said Bella, languidly.

“Yes, it's very absurd to fill one's house with company, and give them no better amusement than the chit-chat of a boarding-house. I declare I have no patience with her.”

“Where did your father go?”

“He went over to Port-Graham. He suddenly bethought him of a lease—I think it was a lease—he ought to have sent off by post, and he was so eager about it that he started without saying good-bye. And Mark,—what of him and Alice?”

“There's all the information I can give you;” and she handed her a card with one line in pencil: “Good-bye till evening, Bella. You, were asleep when I came in.—Alice.”

“How charmingly mysterious! And you have no idea where they 've gone?”

“Not the faintest; except, perhaps, back to the Abbey for some costumes that they wanted for that 'great tableau.'”

“I don't think so,” said she, bluntly. “I suspect—shall I tell you what I suspect? But it's just as likely you 'll be angry, for you Lyles will never hear anything said of one of you. Yes, you may smile, my dear, but it's well known, and I 'm not the first who has said it.”

“If that be true, Beck, it were best not to speak of people who are so excessively thin-skinned.”

“I don't know that. I don't see why you are to be indulged any more than your neighbors. I suppose every one must take his share of that sort of thing.”

Bella merely smiled, and Rebecca continued: “What I was going to say was this,—and, of course, you are at liberty to dissent from it if you like,—that, however clever a tactician your sister is, Sally and I saw her plan of campaign at once. Yes, dear, if you had been at dinner yesterday you 'd have heard a very silly project thrown out about my being sent over to fetch Tony Butler, under the escort of Mr. Norman Maitland. Not that it would have shocked me, or frightened me in the least,—I don't pretend that; but as Mr. Maitland had paid me certain attention at Lyle Abbey,—you look quite incredulous, my dear, but it is simply the fact; and so having, as I said, made these advances to me, there would have been considerable awkwardness in our going off together a drive of several hours without knowing—without any understanding—” She hesitated for the right word, and Bella added, “A quoi s'en tenir, in fact.”

“I don't know exactly what that means, Bella; but, in plain English, I wished to be sure of what he intended. My dear child, though that smile becomes you vastly, it also seems to imply that you are laughing at my extreme simplicity, or my extreme vanity, or both.”

Bella's smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave.

“I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen in the same company with Alice Lyle—Trafford, I mean—and her sister; but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events, the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it, papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey; but so hurriedly—for the car was at the door, and we were seated on it—that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points,—the usual ones, I suppose,—that—that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.”

“I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke with a very marked gravity.

“Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of a regular narrator,—“away we went, our first care on getting back home being to prepare for Mr. Maitland's visit. We got the little green-room ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back, and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the French commander's sword on the quarter-deck of the 'Malabar:' in fact, it was as neat as could be,—but he never came. No, my dear,—never.”

“How was that?”

“You shall hear; that is, you shall hear what followed, for explanation I have none to give you. Mr. Maitland was to have come over, on the Wednesday following, to dinner. Papa said five, and he promised to be punctual; but he never came, nor did he send one line of apology. This may be some new-fangled politeness,—the latest thing in that fashionable world he lives in,—but still I cannot believe it is practised by well-bred people. Be that as it may, my dear, we never saw him again till yesterday, when he passed us in your sister's fine carriage-and-four, he lolling back this way, and making a little gesture, so, with his hand as he swept past, leaving us in a cloud of dust that totally precluded him from seeing whether we had returned his courtesy—if he cared for it. That's not all,” she said, laying her hand on Bella's arm. “The first thing he does on his arrival here is to take papa's rooms. Well,—you know what I mean,—the rooms papa always occupies here; and when Raikes remarks, 'These are always kept for Commodore Graham, sir; they go by the name of the Commodore's quarters,' his reply is, 'They 'll be better known hereafter as Mr. Norman Maitland's, Mr. Raikes.' Word for word what he said; Raikes told me himself. As for papa, he was furious; he ordered the car to the door, and dashed into our room, and told Sally to put all the things up again,—that we were going off. I assure you, it was no easy matter to calm him down. You have no idea how violent he is in one of these tempers; but we managed at last to persuade him that it was a mere accident, and Sally began telling him the wonderful things she had heard about Maitland from Mrs. Chetwyn,—his fortune and his family, and what not. At last he consented to take the Chetwyns' rooms, and down we went to meet Mr. Maitland,—I own, not exactly certain on what terms it was to be. Cordial is no name for it, Bella; he was—I won't call it affectionate, but I almost might: he held my hand so long that I was forced to draw it away; and then he gave a little final squeeze in the parting, and a look that said very plainly, 'We, at least, understand each other.' It was at that instant, my dear, Alice opened the campaign.”

“Alice! What had Alice to do with it?”

“Nothing,—nothing whatever, by right, but everything if you admit interference and—Well, I'll not say a stronger word to her own sister. I 'll keep just to fact, and leave the commentary on this to yourself. She crosses the drawing-room,—the whole width of the large drawing-room,—and, sweeping grandly past us in that fine Queen-of-Sheba style she does so well, she throws her head back,—it was that stupid portrait-painter, Hillyer, told her 'it gave action to the features,'—and says, 'Take me into dinner, will you?' But she was foiled; old Mrs. Maxwell had already bespoke him. I hope you 're satisfied now, Bella, that this is no dream of mine.”

“But I cannot see any great mischief in it, either.”

“Possibly not. I have not said that there was. Sally 's no fool, however, and her remark was,—'There 's nothing so treacherous as a widow.'”

Bella could not contain herself any longer, but laughed heartily at this profound sentiment.

“Of course we do not expect you to see this with our eyes, Bella, but we're not blind, for all that. Later on came the project for fetching over Tony Butler, when Alice suggested that Mr. Maitland was to drive me over to the Burns ide—”

“Was that so very ungenerous, then?”

“In the way it was done, my dear,—in the way it was done. In that ha, ha, ha! manner, as though to say, 'Had n't you both better go off on a lark to-morrow that will set us all talking of you?'”

“No, no! I'll not listen to this,” cried Bella, angrily; “these are not motives to attribute to my sister.”

“Ask herself; let her deny it, that's all; but, as Sally says, 'There 's no playing against a widow, because she knows every card in your hand.'”

“I really had no idea they were so dangerous,” said Bella, recovering all her good-humor again.

“You may, perhaps, find it out one day. Mind, I 'm not saying Alice is not very handsome, and has not the biggest blue eyes in the world, which she certainly does not make smaller in the way she uses them; or that any one has a finer figure, though some do contrive to move through a room without catching in the harp or upsetting the china. Men, I take it, are the best judges, and they call her perfection.”

“They cannot think her more beautiful than she is.”

“Perhaps not, dear; and as you are so like as to be constantly mistaken—”

“Oh, Beck! surely this is not fair,” said she, and so imploringly that the other's voice softened down as she said,—“I never meant to be rude; but my head is gone wild to-day; for, after all, when matters had gone so far, Alice had no right to come in in this fashion; and, as Sally says, 'Why did she never encourage him till she saw his attentions addressed to another?'”

“I never perceived that she gave Mr. Maitland any encouragement. Yes, you may hold up your hands, Beck, and open your eyes very wide; but I repeat what I have said.”

“That's a matter of taste, I suppose,” said Beck, with some irritation. “There are various sorts of encouragements: as Sally says, 'A look will go further with one than a lock of your hair with another.'”

“But, really, Sally would seem to have a wisdom like Solomon's on these subjects,” said Bella.

“Yes; and what's more, she has acquired it without any risk or peril. She had neither to drive half over a county with a gentleman alone, or pass a good share of a night walking with him in the alleys of a garden.”

“What do you mean by this?” asked Bella, angrily.

“Ask Alice; she 'll be here, I suppose, this evening; and I 'm sure she 'll be delighted to satisfy all your sisterly anxiety.”

“But one word, Beck,—just one word before you go.”

“Not a syllable. I have said now what I rigidly promised Sally not to mention when I came in here. You got it out of me in a moment of irritation, and I know well what's in store for me when I confess it,—so good-bye.”

“But, Beck—”

“Don't make yourself cough, dear; lie down and keep your shawl round you. If I 'd thought you were so feverish, I 'd not have come over to torment you,—good-bye;” and, resisting all Bella's entreaties and prayers, Beck arose and left the room.