"Good for you, Calthy," cried Lanigan Beam, advancing with outstretched hands. "How do you do? Old Sultan is at his tricks again, is he, declining to back? But you got the better of him that time, and did it well, too."

In his admiration of the feat he had witnessed, the credit of which he gave entirely to his old and well-tried fiancÉe, Lanigan forgot for the moment his plan for the benefit of Lethbury.

Irritated and embarrassed as she was, Miss Calthea did not forget her intention of treating Lanigan Beam as a person between whom and herself there could be nothing of a connecting order which could be set up as something of an obstructing order between herself and any one else. She therefore took his hand, made a few commonplace remarks about his return, and then, excusing herself, approached Mrs. Cristie, who was just about to alight from the phaeton, and gave her the invitation to drive to Romney. That lady hesitated a few moments, and then, remembering some shopping she would like to do, accepted; and the attention of Miss Mayberry having been called to the baby-carriage behind the tree, the two ladies drove off.

Ida Mayberry gazed for a moment at the parting vehicle, and then, turning to Mr. Beam, she said:

"She might at least have thanked me for getting her out of that scrape."

"Was that your idea?" said Lanigan.

"Of course it was," said the young woman: "if I hadn't shown her how to make the horse back, she would have pulled her arms out for nothing. It is easy to see that she does not know anything about managing horses."

Lanigan laughed outright.

"I would advise you not to say that to her," he said.

"I would as soon say it to her as not," said Ida; "somebody ought to do it. Why, if that horse had shied towards me instead of away from me when I jumped from that tree, I might have been very much hurt."

Lanigan laughed again, but this time inwardly.

"Do you like yellow flowers, Miss Mayberry?" said he. "The largest wild coreopsis I ever saw grows in this region. I noticed some in a field we just passed. Shall I gather a few for you?"

"I am very fond of that flower," said Ida; and Mr. Beam declaring that if she would step a little way with him he would show her a whole field of them, the two walked up the road.

Walter Lodloe had been gazing with some dissatisfaction at the departing phaeton. His mind was getting into a condition which made it unpleasant for him to see people take Mrs. Cristie away from him. He now turned and looked at the baby-carriage, in which the infant Douglas was sitting up, endeavoring by various noises to attract attention to himself. Lodloe pulled the vehicle into the road, and, finding that the motion quieted its occupant, he began slowly to push it towards the Squirrel Inn. When Walter Lodloe turned into the open space about the inn he met Mr. Tippengray with a book in his hand.

"Really," said the latter, elevating his eyebrows, "I heard the creaking of those little wheels, and I—"

"Thought Miss Mayberry was making them creak," said Lodloe. "But she is not, and you may as well postpone the lesson I suppose you want to give her. She is at present taking lessons in botany from another professor"; and he hereupon stated in brief the facts of the desertion of the infant Douglas. "Now what am I going to do with the little chap?" he continued; "I must search for Mrs. Petter."

"Don't do that," said the Greek scholar, quickly; "it would look badly for the young woman. Let me have the child; I will take care of it until she comes. I will wheel it down to my summer-house, where it is cool and shady."

"And an excellent spot to teach Greek," said Lodloe, laughing.

"A capital place," gaily replied Mr. Tippengray, putting his book into his pocket, and taking hold of the handle of the little carriage, elated by the feeling that in so doing he was also, for a time, getting a hold upon Miss Mayberry.

"Yes," he continued, "it is just the place for me; it suits me in all sorts of ways, and I have a mind to tell you of a most capital joke connected with it. It is too good a thing to keep to myself any longer, and now that I know you so well, I am perfectly willing to trust you. Would you believe it? I know the Rockmores of Germantown. I know them very well, and hate them for a lot of prigs. But I never told Stephen Petter. Not I. In some way or other he took it for granted that I did not possess the valuable acquaintanceship, and I let him think so. Ha! ha! That's the way I got the summer-house, don't you see? Ha! ha! ha!"

Lodloe laughed. "Your secret is safe with me," said he; and the two having reached the little garden, he left the Greek scholar and went to his room.

When Ida Mayberry had her arms full of the great yellow flowers she suddenly appreciated the fact that she must be a long way from the baby, and ought immediately to return to it. She thereupon hastened back across the uneven surface of the field. When she reached the spot where the baby had been left, no baby was there.

"My goodness!" she exclaimed, "Mr. Lodloe has taken the child away, and there is no knowing which way he has gone."

"Oh, the youngster's all right," said Lanigan. "Sit down and rest yourself, and we will walk to the inn."

"Not a bit of it!" exclaimed Ida. "You go that way, and I will go this, and if you see him, call out as loud as you can."

Very reluctantly Mr. Beam obeyed orders, and hurried in the direction of the highroad.

As he sat down by his open window Walter Lodloe looked out and saw Ida Mayberry running. Instantly there was a shout from the summer-house and the wave of a handkerchief. Then the nurse-maid ceased to run, but walked rapidly in the direction of the handkerchief-waver, who stood triumphantly pointing to the baby-carriage. After a glance at the baby to see that he was all right, Miss Mayberry seated herself on a bench in the shade, and took off her hat. In a few moments the Greek scholar was seated by her, the book was opened, and two heads were together in earnest study.

About ten minutes later Lodloe saw Lanigan Beam appear upon the lawn, walking rapidly. In a moment he caught sight of the group at the summer-house, and stopped short. He clenched his fists and slightly stamped one foot.

Lodloe now gave a low whistle, and Lanigan glancing upward at the sound, he beckoned to him to come to his tower-room. The young man at first hesitated, and then walked slowly towards the little garden, and ascended the outside stairway.

Lodloe greeted him with a smile.

"As you seem doubtful about joining the little company down there, I thought I would ask you up here," he said.

Lanigan walked to the window and gazed out at the summer-house.

"They are having a good, cozy time of it," said he, "but that won't do. That sort of thing has got to be stopped."

"Why won't it do?" asked Lodloe. "What is the matter with it, and who is going to stop it?"

"It's sheer nonsense," said Beam, turning away from the window and throwing himself into a chair; "why should an old fellow like Tippengray take up all the spare time of that girl? She doesn't need to learn anything. From what she has said to me I judge that she knows too much already."

"It strikes me," said Lodloe, "that if he likes to teach her, and she likes to learn, it is nobody's business but their own, unless Mrs. Cristie should think that her interests were being neglected." He spoke quietly, although he was a little provoked at the tone of his companion.

"Well," said Mr. Beam, stretching his legs upon a neighboring chair, "I object to that intimacy for two reasons. In the first place, it keeps me away from Miss Mayberry, and I am the sort of person she ought to associate with, especially in her vacation; and in the second place, it keeps old Tippengray away from Calthea Rose. That is bad, very bad. Mrs. Petter tells me that before Miss Mayberry arrived Calthea and the Greek were as chummy and as happy together as any two people could be. It is easy to see that Calthea is dead in love with him, and if she had been let alone I am confident she would have married him before the summer was over."

"And you think that desirable?" asked Lodloe.

"Of course I do," cried Lanigan, sitting up straight in his chair and speaking earnestly; "it would be the best thing in the world. Calthea has had a hard time with her various engagements,—all of them with me,—and now that she has found the man she likes she ought to have him. It would be a splendid match; he might travel where he pleased, and Calthea would be an honor to him. She could hold her own with the nobility and gentry, and the crowned heads, for that matter. By George! it would make him two inches taller to walk through a swell crowd with Calthea on his arm, dressed as she would dress, and carrying her head as she would carry it."

"You seem to be a matchmaker," said Lodloe; "but I don't meddle in that sort of thing. I greatly prefer to let people take care of their own affairs; but I feel bound to say to you that after Ida Mayberry neglected her duty to go off with you, I determined to advise Mrs. Cristie to dispense with the services of such a very untrustworthy nurse-maid."

Lanigan Beam sprang to his feet. "Don't you do that!" he cried. "I beg of you not to do that."

"Why not?" said Lodloe. "That would aid your philanthropic plan in regard to Miss Rose and Mr. Tippengray. The maid away, there is no reason why they should not come together again."

"Now I am a straightforward, honest man," said Lanigan, "and I tell you plainly that that would be very hard on me. I've come here to my native place to settle down, and if I settle I've got to marry, and I have never seen a girl whom I would rather marry and settle with than Miss Mayberry. She may be a little slack about taking care of the baby, but I'll talk to her about that, and I know she will keep a closer eye on him. Now if you want to see everybody happy, don't prejudice Mrs. Cristie against that girl. Give me a chance, and I'll win her into the right way, and I'll do it easily and naturally, without making hard blood or hurting anybody. Then old Tip and Calthea will come together again, and everything will be jolly. Now don't you go and blast the happiness of all of us, and get that poor girl turned off like a drunken cook. And as for taking good care of the baby, just look at her now."

Lodloe looked out of the window. Ida Mayberry was leaning forward on the bench, twirling a great yellow flower before the child, who was laughing and making snatches at it. In a moment appeared Mr. Tippengray with a large white daisy; he leaned over the other side of the carriage and twirled his flower in front of the baby. The little fellow was in great glee, first clutching at one blossom and then at the other, and Mr. Tippengray laughed, and Miss Mayberry laughed, and the three laughed together.

"Confound it!" said Lanigan Beam, with a frown, "this thing must be stopped."

Lodloe smiled. "Work matters your own way," he said; "I shall not interfere."

An hour later when Calthea Rose and Mrs. Cristie returned from Romney, Ida Mayberry was walking by the side of the baby-carriage, which Lanigan Beam was pushing towards the spot from which there was the best view of the western sky.

Mrs. Cristie looked at them, and said to herself:

"I don't altogether like that sort of thing, and I think it must be stopped."

Calthea Rose appeared to have recovered her good humor. She looked about her apparently satisfied with the world and its ways, and readily accepted Mrs. Petter's invitation to stay to tea.