Confessions of a Young Lady: Her Doings and Misdoings

by Richard Marsh

III

[THE OGRE]

Mother died while sitting in her chair writing to me. It was tea-time, and she did not come, so Con went to see what she was doing. She was leaning over her writing-table, and as she did not seem to have noticed his coming in--though I am sure that he made noise enough, because he always did--he called out to her.

"Mother! tea's on the table!"

Then, as she neither moved nor answered, he ran forward and put his hand upon her shoulder.

"Mother!"

When he found how still she was, and how unresponsive to his touch, he rushed off, frightened half out of his wits.

Then they all trooped into the room and found that she was dead. She had a pen in her hand, and a sheet of paper in front of her, and had begun the first line of a letter to me--"My dear Molly." Death must have come upon her as she was writing my name, for there is a blot at the end of it, as if her pen had jabbed into the paper. No one knew what she was going to say to me, or ever will. It was just her weekly letter--she wrote to me each Monday. And I expect she was just going to tell me the home news: what Nora had been doing, and what mischief the boys had been in, and beg me to be a good girl and think before I did things sometimes, and keep my stockings darned; those stockings were almost as great a trouble to her as they were to me. Not a creature had a notion that she was ailing. Indeed she was not. She was in good spirits--mother always was in good spirits!--and in perfect health half-an-hour before. It seemed that something extraordinary must have happened to her heart, which no one could have expected. Death must have come upon her in an instant. She must have gone before she had the least idea of what was going to happen. When she got to heaven how grieved she must have been to think that she had been compelled to leave us all without a word.

Never shall I forget receiving the telegram at Mrs Sawyer's. We were just going to bed, and the last train was nearly due to start. But I rushed off to catch it; and Mrs Sawyer went with me. She bought my ticket and sent a telegram to let them know that I was coming. At the other end I had a drive of nearly six miles. It seemed the middle of the night when I got home.

The state the house was in! And the children! They were in much more need of help than mother was. She was calm enough. When I first saw her I could not believe that she was dead. I thought that she was sleeping, and dreaming one of those happy dreams which, she used to tell us, she liked to dream. On her face was the smile with which she always greeted me. She always did look happy, mother did; but I never saw her look happier than when she was lying dead.

But the children! They were half beside themselves. It was dreadful; the boys especially. We could not get Con away from the bed on which mother lay. And Dick, great fellow though he was, was almost as bad. The whole house was topsy-turvy. Nobody knew what to do; everybody seemed to have lost their wits.

That is how it was the Ogre came on the scene. Of course his name was not the Ogre. It was Miller--Stephen Miller. But it was not very long before we only knew him as the Ogre among ourselves. He was not very tall, but he was big; at least, he seemed big to us. He had a loud voice, and a loud way about him generally. We liked neither his looks nor his manners--nor had mother liked them either. But at the beginning I do not know what we should have done without him. That is, I did not know then what we should have done. Though I am inclined to think now that if we had been left to ourselves, and been forced to act, we should have done as well, if not better. Yet one must confess that at the very beginning he was a help, though a comfort one never could have called him.

He was our nearest neighbour. His house was about half a mile down the lane. It was only a cottage. He inhabited it with a dreadful drunken old woman as his only servant. It was said that he could get no one else to stop in the house. He himself was not a teetotaller, and his general character was pretty bad. He seemed to have enough money to live on, because he did nothing except go about with a lot of dogs at his heels. In the charitable way which children have of talking we used to say that he was hiding from the law, and would speculate as to the nature of the crime of which he had been guilty. When he first came he tried to cultivate mamma's acquaintance, but she would have nothing to do with him, and would scarcely recognise him when she met him in the lane. I once heard Dick speak of him as an "unmannerly ruffian"; but I never knew why. And as Dick, like his sister Molly, sometimes said stronger things than the occasion warranted, I did not pay much heed.

The morning after mother's death he came marching into the house to ask if he could be of any assistance. No one, so far as I could ever gather, said either yes or no, which shows the condition we were in. He seems to have taken our consent for granted--to such an extent that he at once took into his hands the entire management of everything. He managed the inquest--for that I was grateful. Oh, that dreadful inquest! He also managed the funeral; for his services in that direction my gratitude assumed a mitigated form. Although the world was still upside down, and everything seemed happening in a land of topsy-turvydom, I yet was conscious that a good deal took place at mother's funeral which I would rather had not have taken place. For one thing I felt sure that a great quantity of money was being spent on it, much more than need have been. A number of people were invited who had not the slightest right to be present, so that we children were almost lost amid a crowd of strangers. In spite of the dreadful trouble I was in it made me burn when I saw them. Many of them were people whom mother would never have allowed to enter the house. Then there was an excessive amount of eating and drinking, especially drinking. Some time after we had returned from the grave I went into the hall and there were rows of bottles stacked against the wall. A lot of people seemed to be in the drawing and dining-rooms, who were talking at the top of their voices. I could not go in to see what it meant then--but I could guess.

But the trouble really began after the funeral was over.

We children were in such a strange position. So far as we knew, except mother we had not a relation in the world. There certainly were none with whom we were in communication. I had always fancied, from what mother said, that she and father were married without the approval of their relatives. I did not know if it was father's or mother's side which objected, but I felt sure it was one or the other. And I thought it was just possible that it was both. I believe that, when father died, mother was not nicely treated. This hurt her pride, because, though she was such a darling, and so sweet, and beautiful, and clever, and true, and tender, she was proud, as she had every right to be. And I think, because they were so unkind, she took us straight off to that Sussex village, miles and miles away from everyone, and bought The Chase. Con was a baby when father died, and now he was nearly eleven, so we must have been there quite nine years. And during all that time I do not think we ever had a visitor. This may sound incredible, but I do not remember one. Not that people were unfriendly. But then there were so few people thereabouts. And those who were there mother did not seem to care for. They were either country folk, villagers, farmers, and that sort of thing, or else they were very rich people, who were scattered here and there. I know they called; but I also know that mother did not encourage their advances. She used to tell us, laughingly, that she had six children, and that they were society enough for her.

But the consequence was that when she was gone we knew nothing about anything. We did not know who or where she got her money from, or what money she had. In two months I should be sixteen. That was to be my last term at school. And it is my belief that it was her intention, when I left school for good, to tell me everything, or at least as much as it was desirable that I should know. But if such was her intention she had gone before she had a chance of putting it into execution, or of dropping a hint, or even saying a word. And there we were, as ignorant and as helpless a family as ever was seen upon this earth.

It was under these circumstances that the Ogre showed a disposition to take entire control as if everything about the place--we included--belonged to him. Already there had not been wanting signs that the entire establishment more than sufficiently appreciated the change which had taken place. One of the chief difficulties with which mother had had to contend had been servants. In that remote part of the world it was almost impossible to get them. And sometimes when they were got they were hardly worth house-room. At the time mother died there were five--cook and two housemaids, a coachman, who was also gardener because his duties as coachman did not occupy anything like the whole of his time, and an odd lad, who was supposed to do whatever he was asked to do. The cook was a new one--she had come since my last holidays. On the day of mother's funeral she was intoxicated; she had indulged too freely in the refreshments which Mr Miller had so liberally ordered. So it may be imagined what sort of character she must have been. The next morning the housemaid, who had been with us longest, came and told me that she could not continue in a house in which there was no mistress. When I mildly suggested that I was the mistress now she remarked, quite frankly, that she could not think of taking her orders from me. Mr Miller, who had been standing at the morning-room door, listening, called her in to him. The details of what took place between them I never learned. But that afternoon she took herself off without another word to me. When, after she had gone, I went into mother's room, I found that all sorts of things were missing. I feared that Mary Sharp had taken them, and that that was the real explanation of her anxiety to depart. It made me conscious of such an added sense of misery, the feeling that henceforward we were going to be taken advantage of by everyone.

But the Ogre was the thorn in our sides. The day after Mary left we held a council of war in Dick's bedroom.

"I'm not going to stand this sort of thing," Dick announced. "And the sooner that beggar downstairs is brought to understand as much the better. Why, he's messing about with mother's papers at this very moment."

"A punch on the nose would do him good," declared Jack. He is one of the twins.

"A sound licking wouldn't do him any harm," added Jim. He is the other twin.

"He'll get both if he doesn't take care."

Dick drew himself up as straight as a dart. Although he was only fifteen he was five feet eight inches high, and as strong as anything--and so good-looking.

"But surely mother must have left a will. There must be something to tell us what is going to happen."

That was what I said. Dick took up my words at once.

"That point shall soon be settled. We'll go down and tackle the beggar right away."

Off we trooped to interview the Ogre in a body. He was in the morning-room--mother's own particular apartment. Outside the door we might have hesitated, but it was only for a moment. In strode Dick, and in we all went after him. The Ogre seemed surprised and not too pleased to see us. A bottle and a glass were on the table; both of those articles seemed to be his inseparable companions. One of his horrid dogs, which had been lying on the hearth-rug, came and sniffed at us as if we were the intruders. The whole room was in confusion. It looked as if it had not been tidied for days, and I daresay it had not been. When I thought of how different it used to be when it was mother's very own room, a pang went right through my heart. I could not keep the tears out of my eyes; and it was only because I was so angry that I managed to choke them back again. Papers and things were everywhere. At the moment of our entrance he had both his hands full of what I was convinced were mother's private letters.

It did seem like sacrilege, that that disreputable-looking man, with his pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth, who was nothing and no one to us, should be handling mother's treasures as if they were so much rubbish. I am almost certain that if I had been a big strong giant I should have been tempted to knock him down. It was not surprising that Dick spoke to him in the fiery way he did. When I looked at him I saw that he had gone red all over, and that his eyes were gleaming. He was not very polite in his manner, but more polite than the Ogre deserved.

"What are you doing with those things? What do you want here at all?"

The Ogre glanced up, then down again. I do not believe he could meet Dick's eyes. He smiled--a nasty smile, for which I could have pinched him. And he continued to turn over the things which he was holding.

"My dear boy, I'm putting these papers into something like order. I never saw anything like the state of confusion which everything is in."

"Don't call me your dear boy! And what business of yours is it what state they're in? Who asked you to put them in order? What right have you to touch them?"

The Ogre calmly went on with what he was doing as if Dick was a person of not the slightest consequence. And he continued to indulge in that extremely objectionable smile.

"You haven't a very nice way of asking questions. And some people might think that the questions themselves were a little suggestive of ingratitude."

"What have I to be grateful for? I never asked you to come here. You are not a friend of ours."

"That you most emphatically are not!"

It was I who came blazing out with that. He looked at me out of the corner of his bloodshot eyes, his smile more pronounced than ever.

"Now, Miss Molly, that's unkind of you."

I was in a rage.

"You appear to be oblivious of the fact that you were not even an acquaintance of my mother's; and as those persons she did not wish to know we do not care to know either, we shall be obliged by your leaving the house at your earliest possible convenience."

"Inside two seconds," added Dick.

"Perhaps you'd like a little assistance."

"It's always to be got."

These two remarks came from the twins. The Ogre laid down on the table what he had been holding. A very ugly look came on his face.

"This is an extraordinary world. I don't want to say anything offensive--"

"You can say what you like," cried Dick.

"I intend to, my lad."

"Don't call me your lad!"

The Ogre looked at Dick. And this time he gave him glance for glance. And I knew, from the expression which was on both their faces, that if we were not careful there was going to be trouble. I am not sure that my heart did not quail. The Ogre spoke as if my brother was unworthy even his contempt.

"Mr Dick Boyes, you appear to be under the impression that you are still at school, and can play the bully here, and treat me as I have no doubt you are in the habit of treating the smaller chaps there. You never made a greater mistake in the course of your short life. I am not the kind of man who will allow himself to be bullied by a hobbledehoy. I give you fair warning that if you treat me to any of your insolence the consequences will be on your own head--and other parts of you as well. Don't you flatter yourself that the presence of your little sisters will shield you from them."

"Throw something at him!"

"Down him with a pail of water!"

These suggestions proceeded from the twins. The Ogre turned his attention to them.

"If you two youngsters want a row you shall have it. And it will take the shape of the best licking you've ever had yet. You'll not be the first pair of unmannerly cubs I've had to take in hand."

I spoke; I wanted peace.

"There's not the slightest necessity for you to talk like that, Mr Miller. We're quite willing to believe that you're more than a match for any number of helpless children. But this is our house--"

"Indeed! Are you sure of that?"

"Of course I am sure. Do you mean to say that it is not?"

"At present I am saying nothing. I only advise you not to be too confident on a point on which some very disagreeable surprise may be in store for you."

"At anyrate, it is not your house. And all we ask--with all possible politeness--is that you should leave it."

"So that is all you ask. It seems to me to be a good deal."

"I don't know why it should. If you were a gentleman it would not be necessary to ask you twice."

"If I were a gentleman? I suppose if I came up to a school-girl's notion of what a gentleman ought to be--a sort of glorified schoolboy. I'm a good deal older than you, Miss Boyes--"

"You certainly are!"

"I certainly am, thank goodness!"

"I am glad you are thankful for something."

"I am glad that you are glad. As I was observing, when you interrupted me, I am older than you--for which I have every cause to be thankful--and my experience of the world has taught me not to pay much heed to a girl's display of temper. I undertook the management of affairs at your own request--"

"At my request? It's not true!"

A voice came from behind me. Looking round, there, in the doorway, was cook; and, on her heels, Betsy, the remaining housemaid. While--actually!--at the open window was Harris, the coachman, staring into the room as if what was taking place was the slightest concern of his. It was cook's voice which I heard, raised in accents of surprise, as if my point-blank denial of the Ogre's wicked falsehood had amazed her.

"Oh, Miss Molly, however can you say such a thing! When I heard you thanking Mr Miller with my own ears! And after all he has done for you. Well, I never did!"

"What did you hear?"

"I heard Mr Miller ask you in the hall if there was anything he could do for you, and you said you'd be very much obliged. Then he went on to say, I'm sure as kind as kind could be, that if you liked he'd take the whole trouble off your hands and manage everything; and you said,' Thank you.' And now for you to stand there and declare you didn't, and to behave to him like this after all he's done for you, in one so young I shouldn't have believed that it was possible."

In the first frenzy of my grief and bewilderment I had scarcely understood what I was saying to anybody. I remembered Mr Miller coming, as cook said, but that anything which had been said on either side had been intended to bear the construction which was being put upon it was untrue.

"I was not in a state of mind to understand much of what Mr Miller was saying, but I supposed that he was offering to assist in the arrangements for mother's funeral, and that offer I accepted."

"You did so. And what you'd have done without him I can't think. He arranged everything--and beautifully too. He's made the family more thought of in this neighbourhood than it ever was before. If ever helpless orphans had a friend in need you've had one in him--you have that."

Betsy had her say.

"He got us our black. There wouldn't have been a word said about it by anyone if it hadn't been for him."

"And he bought me two suits of clothes--blacks."

That was Harris, at the window.

"Bought you two suits of clothes!"

"Yes, miss," said cook, "we've all of us had full mourning, as was only decent. And I happen to know that Mr Miller paid for it. Indeed, he paid for everything. And considering the handsome way in which it has all been done, nothing stinted, nothing mean, a pretty penny it must have cost."

I exchanged glances with Dick and perceived that we were both of opinion that we had had enough of cook. I told her so.

"I have heard what you have had to say. And now, please, will you leave the room?"

"Excuse me, miss, but that's exactly what I don't intend to do--not till I know how I stand."

"How you stand?"

"I'll soon tell you how you stand," declared Dick. "You'll be paid a month's wages and you'll take yourself off."

"Oh, shall I, sir? That's just the sort of thing I thought you would say after the way you've been trying to behave to Mr Miller. And in any case I shouldn't think of stopping in the house with a pack of rude, ungrateful children. But I should like more than one month's wages, if it's the same to you. There's three months nearly due. I've not had one penny since I've been inside this house."

"Not since you've been inside this house?"

"Not one penny; and it's getting on for three months now."

"But I thought mother always paid you every month regularly."

"Did she, miss? Then perhaps you'll prove it. She never paid me; nor more she didn't Betsy. There's three months owing to you, isn't there, Betsy?"

"That there is."

"And so there is to you, isn't there, Harris?"

"Well--I don't know that it's quite three months."

"Why, you told me yourself as how it was."

Harris tilted his hat on one side and scratched his head as if to jog his memory.

"Well--it might be."

At this Dick fired up.

"It's all a pack of lies! I'm sure that my mother paid you your wages as they fell due, and that you're trying to cheat us."

Then it was cook's turn.

"Don't you talk to me like that, not if you do call yourself a young gentleman. And I'll learn you to know that a woman of my age is not going to be called a cheat by a young lad like you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, that's what you ought to be, standing there disgracing of yourself."

The Ogre held up his hand, as if to play the part of peacemaker.

"Gently, cook, gently. You leave it to me and I will see that you have what is due to you. We must remember how ignorant these young people are of their position, and try to make allowances. Though I grant that under the circumstances it's a little difficult." He put his hands into his trouser pockets, tilted back the chair on which he was seated, and considered the ceiling. "What I intend to do is this. At Miss Molly's request I have, reluctantly, incurred certain liabilities and assumed certain responsibilities. To know exactly what those responsibilities are it is necessary that I should examine thoroughly the condition of affairs. When I have done so--it cannot, I am sorry to say, be done in a moment--I will lay the results before the more responsible members of the family--if there are any such--and without waiting for the thanks which I possibly shall not receive I will at once withdraw."

Such a prospect did not commend itself to me at all. That we were already being cheated all round I was sure. That we ran a great risk of being cheated to a much more serious extent if the Ogre was allowed to do as he suggested I felt equally convinced. And in any case I did not want his interference in our private affairs. It was dreadful to think of him peering and prying into mother's secrets, into the things which she held sacred. The way he was behaving now showed how much we could trust him and what use he would make of any knowledge he might acquire. Instead of being our friend he would be our bitterest enemy. And yet I did not see how we were going to get rid of him without a desperate struggle--of which, after all, we might get the worst.

But I was not going to let him see that I was afraid of him.

"Where is the money which was in mother's desk?"

"Money? What money?"

"Mother always kept a large sum of money in her desk. You have had access to her desk, though you'd no right to touch it. How much was there? and where is it now?"

"I've seen no money."

"Why, it is with mother's money that you have been paying for everything."

"I wish it had been. I've been paying for every blessed thing out of my own pocket."

"That's a lie!" shouted Dick. "I know there was money in her desk."

"Look here, my lad--if you'll excuse my calling you my lad--the next time you speak to me like that I'll make you smart for it. Now, don't you expect another warning."

"That's right," cried cook. "You give him a good sound thrashing, Mr Miller. He wants it. Accusing everyone of robbing him, when it's him who's trying to rob everybody!"

The Ogre brought down his clenched fist heavily on the table.

"Listen to me, you children. For all you know, and for all I know, you're nothing but a lot of paupers; and if you don't want to find yourself inside a workhouse you'll leave it to me to make the best of things. So now you've got it."

We had got it. I saw Dick's cheeks blanch. I was conscious that my own went pale. If the awful thing at which he hinted was true, then things were miles worse than I had ever supposed. But was it true? And how, with him sitting there, were we going to look for proof of either its truth or falsehood?

Just as I was beginning to fear that I should make a goose of myself and cry, I heard someone come up the front doorsteps and ask,--

"Is Miss Boyes at home? Miss Molly Boyes?"

I rushed out into the hall. There, standing at the hall door, which was wide open, was the handsomest man I had ever seen. He was very tall and sunburned. He had his cap in his hand, so that you could see that he had short curly hair. And his moustache was just beginning to come. I wondered if he was a harbinger of more trouble. He did not look as if he was; but he might be.

"I am Molly Boyes."

"My name is Sanford. I am afraid I ought to apologise for my intrusion, but I am a cousin of Hetty Travers, who tells me you are a friend of hers. I am staying a few miles from here, and she has written to say that she is afraid you are in trouble, and to ask me to run over and see if I can be of assistance."

Hetty's cousin! That did not sound like trouble. How sweet of her to think of me, and to send that great strong man! She might have guessed what was happening to us--the dear!

"I am in trouble. I have lost my mother. And now, there is Mr Miller."

"Mr Miller? Who is he?"

The children had already trooped into the hall. Then Dick appeared. I introduced him.

"This is my brother Dick. Dick, this is Mr Sanford, a cousin of Hetty Travers. You have heard me speak of Hetty. Mr Sanford has come to know if he can be of any assistance to us."

"If you really would like to do something to help us--"

There Dick stopped, as if in doubt.

"I should," said Mr Sanford.

I rather fancied from the way he smiled that he had taken a liking to Dick upon the spot. I did so hope he had.

"Then perhaps you'll lend me a hand in chucking this man Miller through the window. He's almost a size too large for me. Come inside here."

We all trooped back into the morning-room, Mr Sanford and Dick in front. Dick pointed to the Ogre.

"You see that individual. His name's Miller. He's taken possession of the place as though it belongs to him; he's made free with my mother's property and papers; and when I ask him to leave the house he talks about treating me to a good sound thrashing."

"He does, does he? Is he a relation of yours?"

"Relation! He's not even an acquaintance. He came here uninvited when my mother lay dead, took advantage of the state of mind we were in to gain a footing in the house, and now we can't get rid of him."

Mr Sanford turned to me.

"Is it your wish, Miss Boyes, that this person should leave the house?"

"It is very much my wish. He knows it is."

"You hear, sir. I hope it is not necessary to emphasise the wish which Miss Boyes has expressed so clearly."

Cook struck in.

"A pretty way of talking, upon my word. Perhaps, my fine gentleman, while you are putting your nose into other people's business you'll see that our wages are paid. Mr Miller's only trying to save us from being robbed, that's all he's doing. Three months' wages there is due to each of us servants, and over."

Mr Sanford paid no heed at all to cook. He continued to eye the Ogre.

"Well, sir?"

"Well, sir, to you."

"You heard what I said?"

"I did. And if you are wise you'll hear what I say, and not interfere in what is absolutely no concern of yours."

"Nothing in this house is any concern of yours," burst out Dick. "And well you know it!"

"Who's dog is this?" asked Mr Sanford.

The Ogre's dog--a horrid, savage-looking creature--was sniffing at Mr Sanford's ankles, showing his teeth and growling in a way that was anything but friendly. Its owner grinned, as if the animal's behaviour met with his approval.

"That's my dog. It objects to strangers--of a certain class."

Suddenly Mr Sanford stooped down, gripped the brute by the scruff of its neck and the root of its tail, swung it through the air and out of the window. Harris happened to be staring in at the time. The dog struck him as it passed. Over he went, and off tore the dog down the drive, yelping and howling as if it had had more than enough of our establishment. The Ogre sprang from his chair, and he used a very bad word.

"What do you mean by doing that?"

Harris, as he regained his feet, gave utterance to his woes.

"That's a nice thing to do, to throw a great dog like that right into a man's face! What next, I wonder?"

Mr Sanford was most civil.

"Hope it hasn't hurt you, but I'm afraid that your face must have been in the way." Then to the Ogre: "Well, sir, we are still waiting. By which route do you propose to follow your dog?"

There was something in Mr Sanford's looks and manner which, in view of the little adventure his dog had had, apparently caused the Ogre to suspect that the moment had arrived when discretion might be the better part of valour.

"Before we go any further, perhaps you'll let me know who's going to repay what I've advanced? Nearly two hundred pounds I'm out of pocket."

"You're nearly two hundred pounds out of pocket!" cried Dick. "What for?"

"Why, for seeing that your mother was buried like a respectable woman. It begins to strike me that you'd have liked to have had her buried by the parish."

The Ogre thrust his red face so very close to Dick's that I suppose the provocation and temptation together were more than Dick could stand. Anyhow, Dick gave him a tremendous slap on the cheek. In a moment Mr Sanford was between them.

"It serves you right," he declared. "It shows what sort of person you must be that you should permit yourself to use such language in this house of mourning."

"Harris," shouted the Ogre, "run round to Charlie Radford and Bill Perkins and tell 'em I want 'em, quick! And loose the dogs and bring 'em back with you!"

"Begging of your pardon, Mr Miller," replied Harris, possibly perceiving in which direction the wind was about to blow, "but if you want any more of your dirty work done you'll do it yourself."

Cook was horrified.

"Well, the likes of that! After all Mr Miller has done for you!"

"Done for me! He has made me do what I'm ashamed of, that's what he's done for me! I've had enough of him, and of you too, Mrs Boyes was as good a mistress as anyone need have. I know it if no one else does. And, Miss Molly, your mother always paid my wages regular to the moment; you don't owe me nothing. And you don't owe cook and Betsy nothing either."

"What do you know about what is and is not owing me?" screamed cook.

"I know you were paid each month; and, what's more, I know you gave a receipt for it. Why, you told me yourself that you took the wages' receipt book from the little cupboard in the corner."

Cook's virtuous indignation was beautiful to behold.

"It only shows how sensible Mary Sharp was to pack her box and take herself outside of such a place. And I'll do the same within the hour."

"So will I," said Betsy.

"Mr Sanford," I said, "all sorts of mother's things are missing, and I shouldn't be at all surprised if cook and Betsy have taken some of them."

"Me taken your mother's things!" screamed cook. I believe that if it had not been for Mr Sanford she would have scratched me.

"I think it not at all improbable," he agreed. "Is there a constable hereabouts?"

"There's one in the village." This was Harris, who seemed to have arrived at a sudden resolution to attack his late allies at every possible point, "Name of Parker."

"If you will be so good as to request Mr Parker's immediate attendance you shall have no reason to regret it, Mr Harris. Neither of you women will leave this house until the contents of your boxes have been examined in the presence of a policeman."

Cook looked uncomfortable as she met Mr Sanford's stern glance. And it was stern! Betsy began to cry.

"And what's more," added Harris, pointing at the Ogre, "I happen to know that there was money in Mrs Boyes's desk, and he knows it too."

With that parting shot Harris hurried off down the avenue.

"Things are beginning to wear rather an ugly aspect, Mr Miller."

"Ugly aspect! What do you mean? You needn't think I want to stop in this hugger-muggering hole! I am just as anxious to get out of it as anyone can be to get me out."

"I should hardly think that possible."

"I only regret that I ever set foot in it."

"Then the regret is general."

"As for these ungrateful little wretches, and especially you, my lad!"--this was Dick--"they shall hear of me very soon in quite another fashion, when they haven't got a bully to back them up."

Mr Sanford laughed.

"He's cramming mother's things into his pocket at this very moment!" cried Jim.

"Aren't you making a mistake, Mr Miller?"

Mr Sanford's politeness seemed to make the Ogre feel dreadful. He looked as if he would have liked to have killed him.

"I don't want the miserable rubbish!"

He banged the letters and things down on the table. Dick went on,--

"I believe that what Harris says about there having been money in mother's desk is true, and this man hasn't accounted for a penny. And it's my belief too that he's been taking what he likes out of the house. He lives just up the lane--I shouldn't be surprised to find plenty of mother's property at his own place."

The Ogre moved towards the door, but it was too late, Mr Sanford interposed.

"Excuse me, Mr Miller, but I think that now I would rather you waited till Mr Parker arrives. We will accompany you to your own establishment. There--together--we will make certain inquiries."

He blustered a little, but he was a coward at heart, and he had to give in. As it chanced, Harris met Parker in the lane, so that he came back with him almost at once.

All sorts of things which did not belong to them were found in cook's and Betsy's boxes; and actually the book of which Harris had spoken, in which they themselves had signed receipts for their wages. There was a tremendous scene. Parker badly wanted to lock them up, but we had had trouble enough already, so we let them go.

While we were examining the servants' boxes upstairs the Ogre was offering Mr Sanford what he called an explanation. When they went round with him to his own house he handed over quite a collection of miscellaneous articles which belonged to mother. Her cheque-book, all sorts of papers, some of them representing stocks and shares, even some of her jewellery. He said he had taken them home to examine. Which seemed a very curious thing to do. The next morning he had vanished. He had left no address, and nothing was seen or heard of him in that neighbourhood again. So we concluded that he had escaped with something much more valuable than anything which he had given up. But it was a long time before we suspected what it was.

What we should have done without Mr Sanford--if he had not come in the very nick of time--I do not dare to think. We might have been plundered of every single thing we had. It was very nice of Hetty Travers to have a big strong cousin, and it was perfectly lovely of her to send him to us.

IV

[THE HANDWRITING]

It was some time after mother's death before we knew if we were or were not penniless. And as, of course, it was our duty to be prepared for the very worst, we used to discuss among ourselves how, if we were left without a farthing, we should earn one. Though I am perfectly well aware that a single farthing would not have been of much service to us. But then I suppose everybody knows what I mean.

When there are six children, and the eldest is a girl, and she is only sixteen, and they have no relatives, and not one grown-up person to advise them, it does seem strange what a very few ways there are of making a fortune. That is, within a reasonable space of time. So far as I could make out, from what the others said, for every one of them you wanted money to start with. And if you had no money, it was not the slightest use your doing anything. Then the boys had such impracticable notions. Dick was full of South Africa. He declared that nothing was easier than to go to South Africa; find what he called a "claim," on which there were tons of gold, or so many pounds to the ton, I do not quite know which; turn it into a company, and there you were, a millionaire, in what he termed "a brace of shakes." But it appeared to me that that "brace of shakes" would be some time in coming. First, he would have to get to South Africa, then he would have to find his "claim,"--and there was no proof that they were found by everyone; then he would have to get his company up, which might take weeks; and, in the meantime, were we supposed to starve? I seemed to have read somewhere that a human being could not be kept alive without food for more than seven days. I doubted if there would be much left of me after four-and-twenty hours. Jack wanted to be an engine-driver on the railway line, a profession which I feel sure is not too highly paid; while Jim actually yearned to be a fireman in the fire brigade, though how he imagined that he was going to earn a fortune that way was beyond my comprehension.

Nora and I were reluctantly compelled to admit that if our means of sustenance were to depend on the efforts of the masculine portion of the family we should apparently have to go very short indeed. And the field for girls did seem to be so circumscribed. As I said to her--

"There do seem to be such a few ways in which girls can get money."

"There aren't any."

We were in the kitchen, she and I alone together. We were supposed to be getting the tea ready. There was not a servant about the place. And the condition the house was getting into in consequence was beyond anything. She was sitting on the edge of the table, with a coal scoop in one hand and a toasting-fork in the other. Nora always was of a pessimistic description. She invariably looked on the blackest side of everything. So one got into the habit of allowing for the peculiarity of her outlook. Besides, I had in my head at that moment the glimmering of an idea of how to earn an immense amount.

"There are some ways. For instance, there's writing. There are girls who write for papers, and all kinds of things."

"Only those who can't write get paid anything."

I wondered if she had been trying her own hand. The statement did sound so sweeping.

"There's teaching. Look at the lots of governesses that must be wanted."

"Let 'em be wanted. I prefer prussic acid."

"There's drawing for the magazines."

"You might as well talk about drawing for the moon--unless you're a perfect idiot, then you might have a chance."

I felt sure that she had had experiences of her own. Her tone was so extremely bitter.

"And then there are prize competitions. There do seem to be a tremendous number of them about. And some of them for really large prizes."

"Prize competitions!" Nora seemed all at once to have wakened to life and vigour. "Promise you won't split if I tell you something?" I promised. "I believe that all prize competitions are frauds run by robbers. Do you know"--she brought the toasting-fork and coal scoop together with a bang--"that I've gone in for seventy-two of all sorts and kinds, and never won a single prize, not even a consolation. And some of them were hard enough to kill you. I've guessed how much money there was at the Bank of England; how many babies were born on a Tuesday; picked out twelve successful football teams; named three winners at a horse race--"

"Nora!"

"I have--or, at least, I've tried to. Much the largest prizes are offered for that. I've drawn things, written things, calculated things, prophesied things, made things, collected things, solved things, sold things,--once I tried to sell a lot of papers in the village for the sake of the coupons, but no one would buy a single copy. It was a frightful loss. I do believe I've tried my hand at every sort and kind of thing you can think of--and heaps you can't--and, as I say, I've never even won a consolation prize. No more prize competitions for me!"

That was not encouraging, especially as it was a prize competition which I had got in my mind's eye. After her disclosures I did not breathe a word of it to Nora, but when I got up to my bedroom I took out the paper in which I had seen all about it, and considered. The part which told you about the competition was headed "Delineation of Character by Handwriting." You had to write, on a sheet of paper, a sentence not exceeding twelve words in length. This you had to put into an envelope, which you had to seal and endorse with a pseudonym. This envelope you had to put into another envelope, together with your real name and address, and a postal order for a shilling, or twelve stamps, and send to the paper. The person whose caligraphy was considered to show that the writer was the possessor of the finest character was to receive one hundred pounds.

One hundred pounds!--for a shilling! Of course, I was perfectly well aware that hosts of people would go in, and that, as the chances of success were presumably equal, one's own individual chance was but a small one. But, on the other hand, what was a shilling? And, also, some people's writing was better than others. As a matter of fact, I rather fancied my own. It had been admired by several persons. It was large, bold, and, I was persuaded, distinctly characteristic. I perceived that the sentences had to be despatched to the office of the paper on the following day.

Why should not one of mine go with them? There really seemed no reason. I had twelve stamps. There were pens, ink, and paper. My non-success would merely add to the list of failures with which the family was already credited--making seventy-three. What was that? The question was, what sentence should I send. You were left to choose your own. But the presumption was that your chances of success would not be lessened if the one selected was a good one. I had it on the instant. My desk chanced to be open. There, staring at me on the top, was the very thing.

At Mrs Sawyer's school there had once been a governess named Winston--Sophia Winston. We all of us liked her. I adored her. She was one of the best and sweetest creatures that ever lived. But her health was not very good and she had to leave. Before she left I asked her to write a motto in my book of mottoes. Although she said she would, when I came to look for the book I could not find it anywhere. Somehow, in those days, my things always were playing games of hide-and-seek with me. So, instead, she wrote a motto on a sheet of paper. There lay the identical sheet of paper in front of me at that moment. I took it up; opened it; read it:--

"Who goes slowly goes safely and goes far."

The very thing! I more than fancied that it was with malice prepense that Miss Winston had referred me to that rendering of what I knew was an Italian proverb. It was not my custom to go slowly, or safely, or--in the sense in which the word was there used--far. But, for the purpose of the present competition, that was not a matter of the slightest consequence. I made six copies of Miss Winston's sentence; picked out the one which I judged was the best; and, after destroying the other five, packed it up with the requisite twelve stamps, and sent it off to the office of the paper.

Of course I told no one of what I had done. I was not quite so silly as that. The boys would have laughed--especially Dick, who was once rude enough to ask me if I wrote with the end of a broom-stick. While Nora--after her revelations of the hollowness and deceitfulness of such things--would have concluded I was mad. I simply held my tongue. And I waited.

The paper to which I had sent was a weekly one--it came out every Wednesday. It appeared that the competition was a weekly one also. The sentences had to reach the office on the one Wednesday morning, and in the paper which came out on the following Wednesday the results were announced. Either not many sentences were sent in, or there must have been someone in the office who was uncommonly quick at reading character. There used to be a girl at Lingfield House who pretended to read character from handwriting. She wanted pages of it before she would attempt to say what kind of character you had. Then she would take days to form an opinion. And then it would be all wrong. I daresay that in the office of the paper they had had a deal of practice.

On the Thursday morning of the week following I was down first as, I am sorry to say, I generally had to be; sometimes I actually had to drag the others out of bed; and Nora was every bit as bad as the boys--and as I came into the hall I saw a letter lying on the floor. Smith the postman had pushed it through the slit in the door. I picked it up. It was addressed to "Miss Molly Boyes, The Chase, West Marden, Sussex." On the top of the envelope was printed "Trifles. The Paper For The Whole World." When I saw it something seemed to give a jump inside me, so that I trembled all over. I could hardly tear it open. There were three things inside. One--could I believe my eyes? at first I felt that they must be playing me a trick--but one really was a cheque--"Pay Molly Boyes or Order One Hundred Pounds." I believe that at the sight of it I very nearly fainted. I never have done quite; but I think that I very nearly did do then. It was a most odd sensation. I was positively glad to feel the wall at my back, and I went hot and cold all over. Of the other two enclosures the first was a letter--from the editor himself! though, as it had been done by a typewriter, it was not in his own writing--perhaps that was because he was afraid of having his character told--saying that he was glad to inform me that I had been adjudged the winner of that week's competition; that he had pleasure in handing me a cheque for one hundred pounds herewith; and that he would be obliged by my signing and returning the accompanying form of receipt. The second inclosure was the receipt.

As soon as I recovered my senses I tore up the stairs about three at a time. I rushed in to Nora.

"Nora," I cried, "I've won a hundred pounds!"

She was lying reading in bed, and was so engrossed in her book that she did not catch what I said. She grumbled.

"I wish you wouldn't come interrupting me like that; especially as I've just got to where the hero is killing his second wife."

"Bother his second wife! and bother the hero too! Look at that!" I held out before her the editor's letter and the cheque. "Seventy-two times you've tried, at least, you said you had; and I've only tried once. And the very first time I've won!"

"What are you talking about?"

"If you'll come to Dick's room I'll tell you all about it."

Off I raced to Dick's room, calling out to Con and Jack and Jim as I passed. Presently the whole family were gathered about Dick's bed. Nora had put on a dressing-gown, but the three younger boys were just as they had got out of the sheets.

"Well," said Dick, when he had turned the cheque over and over and over, and held it up to the light to see if it was a forgery, "some rum things do happen, and those who deserve least get most."

"I always have thought," observed Nora, "that those prize competitions were frauds, and now I know it."

Jack was more sympathetic--or he meant to be.

"Never mind what they say; it's only their beastly jealousy. I'm jolly glad you have won, because now we can have new bicycles."

"About time too," declared Jim. "I've had mine tinkered so many times that there's none of the original machine left."

"I punctured my tyre again yesterday," groaned Con. "That's about the twentieth time this week. It's hardly anything but holes."

I had not contemplated providing the whole family with new bicycles. But they did seem a necessity. I knew that I wanted a new machine, and so did Nora. And in a little matter of that kind the boys were pretty sure not to be very far behind. Fortunately nowadays bicycles are so cheap; and then we could always give our old ones in exchange; so, supposing the worst came to the worst, and we were all penniless, even after buying six new bicycles, I ought to have a good deal of money left, to keep us in food and things. Because, of course, I had to remember that I could not expect to win a hundred pounds every time I tried.

The nearest place to us where they sold papers was the bookstall at the station, and that was six miles away. So after breakfast we all mounted the machines we had, and dashed off to get a copy of Trifles. On the road Con had another puncture. It would not be stopped. As he said, his tyres did seem to have all they wanted in the way of ventilation. So as Jim's handle-bar had come off, and could not be induced to remain where it ought to be, we left them to console each other. Of course Dick, who rides tremendously fast, got to the station first, and Jack next. Nora and I never got there at all. They came flying back to us when we were about two hundred yards away, each waving a paper above his head, and laughing like anything. I was half afraid that there was something wrong, and that although I had got the prize, I had not won it. But it was something else which was amusing them.

"If ever anyone ought to be sent to a lunatic asylum it's the man who runs this paper," shouted Dick. "Let's get to the stile, and I'll prove my words to your entire satisfaction."

At the stile we all four of us dismounted. Unfolding his paper Dick read aloud from it, Jack following him in his own particular copy.

"'We have much pleasure in announcing that, this week, the possessor of the finest character, as revealed by her handwriting, is Molly Boyes, The Chase, West Marden, Sussex, to whom a cheque for one hundred pounds has accordingly been sent. Her character, as declared by her caligraphy, is as follows.'--Now then, all you chappies, listen! attention, please, and mind you, the character 'declared' is supposed to be Molly's--'This writing shows a character of unusual nobility--'"

"Hear, hear!" from Jack.

"'The motto chosen is singularly appropriate'--By the way, the motto chosen was 'Who goes slowly, goes safely and goes far,' so everyone who knows her will perceive its peculiar fitness. Now do just listen to this Johnny, and I ask the lady herself if he doesn't credit her with exactly those qualities which she hasn't got--'Patience and thoughtfulness, a high standard of honour, clear-sightedness, resolution combined with a sweet and tranquil temper,'--what ho!--'are all clearly shown. The writer is strong on both the moral and the intellectual side. A large and beautiful faith is obvious. To a serene tranquillity of temperament is united a keen insight and a calm persistence in following to a successful issue well-considered purposes, instinct with a lofty rectitude.'--As an example of how not to delineate character from handwriting, I should say that takes the record."

I felt myself that here and there that expert was a trifle out. I certainly should not have called the sentence selected "singularly appropriate" to me. Nor should I have laid much stress upon my patience or my thoughtfulness. I had not been hitherto aware that I was the owner of "a sweet and tranquil temper," or of "a serene tranquillity of temperament," or of "calm persistence." Indeed, there were one or two little matters in which I more than suspected that that character reader was a trifle at fault. But, after all, these were questions of opinion, and had nothing to do with the real point, which was, that I had won the hundred pounds.

When we returned home I went upstairs, fetched my desk, carried it down to the morning-room, and prepared to write and tell everyone of my good fortune. In the frame of mind in which I was, it was not a piece of news which I was disposed to keep to myself. I opened the desk, got out the note-paper, found the pen, and just as I had got as far as--"My darling Hetty,--I've won a fortune! You never will guess how!"--I thought of Miss Winston's sentence. It was that which had brought me luck. I was convinced of it. If it had not been for the motto which that curiosity in character readers had found so singularly appropriate, I seriously doubted if I should have won. The least I could do was to kiss it, in memory of the writer.

I had placed it--after making those six copies--in an envelope which I had endorsed "Miss Winston's Motto." I laid down my pen, raked out the envelope, took out the sheet of paper. On it was the sentence, not in Miss Winston's small, exquisite penmanship, but in my own great sprawling hand. For a moment or two I stared at it in bewildered surprise. Then, in the twinkling of an eye, I understood what had happened.

In my characteristic blundering fashion I had confused my copy with her original. My writing I had packed into the envelope I was holding, and hers I had put into the one which I had sent to the paper. It was her caligraphy which had been adjudicated on, her character which had been deduced therefrom. The thing was as plain as plain could be--the whole business had had nothing whatever to do with me. I re-perused the winning character as it appeared in the paper. The man was not such an idiot as we had all supposed. It was not a bit like me; but it exactly described Miss Winston. She was all the lovely things he said she was, while I--I was none of them--I was just an addle-headed donkey.

Talk about sensations! My feelings when I found the cheque in the letter were nothing compared to what they were when I realised precisely what the situation was. The world seemed to have all at once stood still; as if something had happened to the works. It was perfectly awful. Here was my name printed in great big letters in the paper; with my character underneath. I had flaunted the cheque in the face of all the family. In imagination the money was already spent. I had practically promised to buy each one of them a bicycle. And now, after all--

Whose was the money after all?

Never, till that dreadful time, did I thoroughly appreciate what it means about not leading us into temptation. It would be quite easy to say nothing. They were my twelve stamps which I had sent; and the sentence on the piece of paper was my property. Really, if you looked at it from one point of view, the hundred pounds belonged to me as much as to anybody else. I had only to keep my own counsel and it was impossible that anyone should even guess that there was anything the least bit odd about the matter. Of course, I knew what I knew; and the misfortune was that I did know. If I had only never looked inside that horrid envelope, and never found out what had happened, how much happier I should have been.

I laid my head straight down upon the table, and I did cry.

While I was in the very middle of enjoying myself--like a great overgrown baby!--someone came into the room, and a voice said, a voice which I knew well--

"Miss Boyes!--I beg your pardon, but I knocked at the door, and when no one answered I thought I would come in to see if there was anyone about."

It was Mr Sanford! It only wanted him to find me going on like that to finish everything. As usual, all the luck was on my side. I was perfectly aware that the slightest scrap of crying makes me look an object; and here I had been howling myself inside out for goodness alone knew how long. I dabbed at my eyes with my pocket-handkerchief--though I knew I made a fresh smear every time I touched myself, because I had the best of reasons for knowing that tears made me positively grimy--and I tried to pretend that I was not yearning to sink into the ground. He seemed concerned.

"I hope there's nothing wrong?--that the Ogre has been giving you no further trouble?"

I did manage to gasp out something.

"No--thank you--he's--been--giving--us--no--trouble."

He apparently concluded that it might be advisable to seem not to notice that there was anything strange in my demeanour.

"I am the bearer of good news."--We wanted some, badly. I know I did.--"You have been good enough to allow me to examine somewhat closely into the condition of your affairs."--We had been good enough to allow him! As if it had not been perfectly splendid of him to do it; he being, not only Betty's cousin, but a barrister.--"Your mother appears to have managed everything herself--and very well she seems to have done it too; but the fact makes it somewhat difficult for a stranger to probe quickly to the bottom of everything; and the Ogre's proceedings have not made it easier. But so far as I have gone, I have ascertained beyond all doubt that instead of being in fear of the workhouse--as someone suggested--you are very comfortably off. As time goes on I shall not be surprised if you find yourselves--financially--in a still better position."--It was a consolation to know so much. That hundred pounds would not be wanted--"By-the-bye, I saw my cousin Hetty yesterday, and she entrusted me with what she called a note to you. I fancy you will find that it extends to about six sheets of paper."

It is not necessary to tell me it was ill-manners; I knew it was; but I felt that I must do something to avoid meeting his eyes; so I opened the envelope, and started reading Hetty's letter then and there. The opening words seemed to leap up off the paper and strike me in the face.

"My very own dearest little Molly!"--she always would call me little, though I was every bit as big as she was--"What do you think? You remember Miss Winston? She's starving! And she's not only starving, but she's dying of consumption. I've only just found it out by the merest accident. It seems that she's living in a little cottage at a place called Angmering, somewhere near Worthing. She's been ill ever so long, and able to do no work, or earn a penny. So that she has absolutely no money to buy herself food, or even to pay her rent. If someone doesn't come to her help soon they'll have to take her to the workhouse--to die! Poor Miss Winston! And she such a darling! Isn't it dreadful to think of?"

It was. So dreadful, that I could not bear to think. I hope it was not wicked, but I almost felt as if that letter must have dropped out of heaven. It did seem a miracle that it should have come to me at that very moment. Penniless! Starving! And there was that hundred pounds--her hundred pounds--lying on the table. Was it possible that I had even remotely contemplated the possibility of--of doing what? My conscience so rose up at me that, whether Mr Sanford was or was not there, I had to hide my face with my hands and start crying all over again. My behaviour seemed to positively frighten him.

"I hope that Hetty has not said anything disagreeable--nothing to cause you pain. I assure you that nothing was further from her intention, and that the letter was accompanied by all sorts of loving messages."

Then I felt that I must tell him everything. So I did--every morsel, right from the beginning. He was so patient, so full of understanding and of sympathy; indeed, he was much more sympathetic than I deserved. Still, even if you are not deserving of sympathy, it is a comfort to receive it, particularly if it is nicely offered.

I do not wish to breathe a word against my own family. I am perfectly certain that no one could be fonder of Nora and the boys than I am. Yet I am inclined to think that there are times, when if one must confess, it is just as well to do it to someone who is not exactly a relation. One's relatives are apt to take such a narrow view. I am convinced that no one could have taken a broader view than Mr Sanford did; and he never laughed once. That, in itself, was an immense relief. I have noticed in Nora, even when I have been confiding to her the most serious things, a tendency to treat me as if I was not quite in earnest. There was nothing of that sort about Mr Sanford, not a trace; or, at least, if he did show some faint sign of my having afforded him amusement, he did not do it in a brutal way.

"Poor little soul!" he said, when I had finished. "Poor little soul!"--I was not certain that I liked him to address me in quite that form of words. But there was something so extremely soothing in his manner that I let it pass.--"And so this has been the cause of the trouble." He picked up the copy of the sentence which I had meant to send to the paper. "I see no reason why this should not have succeeded in winning the prize. If you will forgive me for posing as an expert, this handwriting is eminently characteristic."

"Don't be horrid!"

"Such is not my intention. I am not suggesting that the character given in the paper is particularly applicable to this."

"I know it isn't!"

"But it does not follow that this does not hint at something equally fine, though in a different way."

"Mr Sanford!"

"I must ask you to forgive me if I annoy you by the expression of my opinion. In any case, you are to be congratulated on what you have done."

"How do you make that out? When I have been winning other people's money with somebody else's writing?"

"Precisely. Though I should not phrase it quite like that. Hetty informs me that this lady is in sore straits. Well, you have gained for her what, in her position, she will regard as a fortune--which she never could have done for herself."

"I never meant to."

"Which actually makes it more delightful. Because, while you have been trying to do a good deed, you have really done a better." He had a very nice way of putting things. "I would suggest that you yourself take the money to this lady at once. Her pleasure at seeing it will only be eclipsed by her delight at seeing you. And I shall be only too proud and happy if you will allow me to accompany you on your errand of mercy."

That was what did happen. Scarcely had he stopped speaking than Harris appeared at the window.

"If you please, Miss Molly, Miss Nora and the young gentlemen asked me to tell you that they've gone off for the day, and won't be back till the evening."

"We also," observed Mr Sanford, "will go off for the day. You see, the stars in their courses are on the side of Miss Winston. I came over on my machine; if you'll jump on yours we'll be off!"

He seemed to imagine that I could rush off to the other side of the county just as I was. Masculine persons do have such curious notions--even when they are grown up. I had to scrub my face to make it clean. The condition of my hair was frightful. I seemed to have cried it into a tangled mass. Just as I was struggling with it his voice came up the stairs.

"I don't know, Miss Boyes, if you are aware that you have been five-and-thirty minutes. If you can get down inside the next five we may catch the train; but if you can't, I'm afraid we sha'n't."

Of course after that I simply flew. I left my hair nearly as it was; jammed my hat on anyhow; and bounded down the stairs.

"I hope I haven't kept you waiting," I remarked.

"I'm used to it," he said. "I have two sisters."

I do not know what he meant. It sounded very rude. Almost like one of my own relations.

We caught the train; and, after changing at Chichester, reached Angmering at last. By that time I had come to the conclusion that Mr Sanford was one of the most delightful persons I had ever encountered. And so intellectual. A trifle dogmatic perhaps, and a little inclined to regard me as younger than I was. We had a long and most interesting discussion about women in politics. A subject of which I knew absolutely nothing. But it was not necessary, on that account, that he should hint as much. Which he very nearly did. Yet, on the whole, I could not but regard him as the kind of cousin to do one credit. And, at the risk of making her conceited, almost made up my mind to tell Hetty so next time I wrote to her.

Dear Miss Winston! We found her, looking like the shadow of her former self, lying on such a hard old couch, in such a poor little room. Had I been an angel she could not have seemed more glad to see me. As I told her all about it she was so sweet. And when I gave her the twenty five-pound notes for which Mr Sanford had changed the cheque at Chichester, the way in which she thanked me did make me feel so strange. As if I had done anything to deserve her thanks. I never knew how happy it made one to be the bearer of good news until that day. As I came away I almost felt as if I had been in the presence of something sacred.

On our way home Mr Sanford and I had a warm argument about old-age pensions, which nearly ended in a tiff. After we had been talking about them for more than half an hour he as good as said that he did not believe that I knew what an old age-pension was. Even if that was true--and it was, perfectly--I did not propose to allow him--almost a stranger--to accuse me of downright ignorance; as if I were an untutored savage. He might know something about everything; and anyone could see that he was awfully clever, while I might know nothing about anything,--which possibly was the case. Still, it was not civil for him to remark on it. The fact was, that he would persist in regarding me--I could see quite plainly what was in his mind--as if I were a mere child. Which, at sixteen, one emphatically is not. I do not hesitate to admit that I snubbed him in order to let him see that I resented his quite intolerable airs of superior wisdom.

Which made it the more singular that he should have told me, as we were entering the drive, that he had to thank me for one of the pleasantest days he had spent in his life. Considering that I had been metaphorically sitting upon him for ever so long, I did not at all understand what he had to thank me for.

When I got out my desk, to commence a letter to Hetty, my copy of Miss Winston's sentence was nowhere to be found. I could not think what had become of it. I distinctly remembered Mr Sanford taking it off the table, and making some uninvited comments on the writing--he seemed fond of criticising other people. But I did not recall what had happened to it afterwards. He could not have put it into his pocket by mistake. It seemed such a very odd thing for him to have done. And so excessively careless.

V

[THE PEOPLE'S STOCK EXCHANGE]

Although we were not paupers, for ever so long after mother's death we lived pretty much as if we were. We hated the idea of living in a town; especially London, and we could not get a servant to stop at The Chase. Considering that the family consisted of Dick and me, and the four children, who all of them insisted on doing exactly as they pleased, it really was no wonder. The consequence was, that we generally had to do everything for ourselves, and the way in which things were done was beyond description. A stranger dropping in suddenly would have supposed himself to have wandered into something between a lunatic asylum and a workhouse.

Of course, as the head of the family, this state of things occasioned me much concern. I knew that it was not what mother would have wished. But when I spoke to the others about it, they all started laying the blame upon each other, and even upon me. The fact is, when we were servantless, the boys expected Nora and me to do everything. We did not see it. Especially as it was almost invariably their fault that we were without a creature to do a thing. Their habits were so erratic. You could not expect a properly trained servant--or indeed anyone--to take them up their breakfasts in bed at intervals of half an hour or so. Or--if they had made up their minds to fly off to the other side of the county--to have a regular meal ready at perhaps five o'clock in the morning. As for lunch, they expected that to be on all day. And always something hot and really nice. As for tea, as a rule, Nora and I had ours together; but no one ever knew when the boys would insist on having theirs. It was the same with dinner. We always had had a proper dinner, and I felt, strongly, that because mother was dead we ought not all at once to behave as if we were barbarians, and leave off everything she had accustomed us to. And Dick said that he agreed with me. So I fixed it first for seven; then half-past; then eight; then for all sorts of times. But it was no use. Either one of the boys would come in half an hour before the proper time, starving, because--through his own fault--he had had nothing to eat all day, and, before anyone could stop him, would seize whatever was cooking, and make a meal off it there and then. Or else some of them would be ever so late, and make a tremendous fuss because we had not waited--even to the extent of expecting another dinner to be served there and then. In that respect Dick was as bad as anyone. No cook would stand that sort of thing--and no cook did.

If we could only have found mother's will it might all have been so different. Because it was not at all unlikely that she had appointed someone as guardian, and to take proper control of everything until the children had grown up. As it was, so far as we knew, no one had a right to even send the boys to school. And as they refused, point-blank, to go of their own accord, educationally they bade fair to shine. At Mr Sanford's suggestion we tried a tutor. The tricks they played him were beyond conception. Nothing would induce him to stop. He actually threatened us with an action for damages. I do not quite know what for, but Mr Sanford had to pay him something extra before he would be satisfied.

I do not wish it to be supposed that the boys were bad boys. They were not. They had loved mother dearly, and I do not believe they had ever given her any trouble. But I fancy they had never been very fond of school. And the sudden chance of liberty had turned their heads. Besides, they had all made up their minds to be things for which much book-learning was not required. And if Jack was going to be an engine-driver, and Jim either a fireman or an aeronaut, and Con a naturalist, it did seem a pity to spend a lot of money on unnecessary schooling.

Unfortunately we could not find a will. The presumption was that mother had made one, but that it had been stolen, because one day I came upon a box of papers which was locked up in one of the drawers in her wardrobe.

Oh dear, how strange I felt as I looked through them. Almost as if I were prying into mother's secrets. Although I know perfectly well that there was nothing which now she would have wished to have kept hidden from me. There were all father's letters--even the love-letters which he had written to her before they were married. If I had only known that they were there, I would have had them placed with her in the coffin, so that they might have been hers only, even in the grave. I think she would have liked it. By the beautiful way in which they had been kept bound about with ribbons tied in true lovers' knots, you could see how sacred she had held them. There were all sorts of things besides. In particular, quantities of ball programmes. She must have seen a great deal of Society at one time. What a strange change must have taken place in her life, because I did not remember her once going anywhere. Some of the things were beyond my comprehension. I wondered what history was attached to a tiny Maltese cross wrapped in silver paper. There were lots of things which suggested us children. Actually, there were the first letters we had each of us written to mother! Such scrawls! Locks of hair, tiny shoes, a baby's cap, a beautiful christening gown, and I do not know what else besides. Fancy her keeping them all those years! I wondered if, when Nora and I were grown-up, and were married, and had children of our own, we should have a treasure-box like mother's, containing mementoes of our dear ones. I think if I ever do, I should like to have it with me in my grave. If I had known of its existence mother should have had hers.

All except one thing which was in it. And it is that to which I have been coming all this time. It was a sheet of foolscap paper, folded in three. On one side was written, in mother's writing: "Contents of Brown Despatch-Box." When I opened it I perceived that it was a sort of inventory. It began,--

"In the brown despatch-box are--

"My husband's will, My own will, My husband's jewels,"

--and then it went on to give quite a long list. Now I knew the brown despatch-box. We all did. It had been father's. There were his initials--R. B.--in gold letters on the lid. It was unlocked by a tiny little key. I had always understood from mother that she had kept all sorts of wonderful things inside of it. Yet, after she had been buried, and we had got rid of the Ogre, and had found her keys, it was empty. It contained not a vestige of anything. I thought it curious at the time. We all had done. But I thought it still more curious by the time I had reached the bottom of that list.

Next time Mr Sanford came to see us--which was a day or two afterwards--I handed it to him. He made inquiries at Somerset House, where, it appears, they keep such things, and there, sure enough, was a copy of father's will. It was simplicity itself, just two lines--

"I give and bequeath everything of which I die possessed to my dear wife, for her sole and absolute use."

So that, so far as we were concerned, everything depended upon what was in mother's will. Mr Sanford explained to us that at Somerset House they only keep a copy when the original will has been what they call "proved." And the whereabouts of the original will was just the question. Was it in existence? and, if so, where?

Dick expressed all our sentiments in language of his own.

"The Ogre collared it; that's what's come to the thing. What asses we were, not to have suspected him of it at the time!"

"If," observed Mr Sanford, "he collared that, then the probability is that he collared a good deal else besides. For instance, your father's jewels. Do any of you know anything about them?"

"It's a most extraordinary thing," I explained, "that I should ever have forgotten them. Mother's death was so sudden, and everything was in such confusion, that, except the one fact that she was dead, all the rest passed clean out of my mind. But I remember them perfectly. Why, it was only during the last holidays before she died that she showed some of them to me. I went into the morning-room one day, and she had the brown despatch-box on the table, and it was full of things. She had a leather case open in her hand. In it were a number of rings. 'See, Molly,' she said, 'there are some of your father's rings. Your father had some beautiful jewels. I am keeping it for Dick and the boys!"

"You are sure she said that she was keeping it?"

"Perfectly certain. Another small case was lying on the table. She took it up. 'Look,' she said, 'this was a present to your father. It is one of the most beautiful diamonds I have ever seen. It can be worn either in a ring, or as a pin, or as a stud.' She attached it to three pieces of gold which were with it in the case, to let me see how that was managed. 'Did he often wear it?' I asked. 'No,' she said; 'he didn't.' And she laughed. 'Your father scarcely ever wore ornaments of any kind. And this is much too fine a stone for a gentleman to wear. But it is worth a great deal of money all the same.'"

"Of course I knew about father's jewels," chorused Dick. "Once, when I was quite a little chap, she showed me a magnificent gold repeater watch, and told me it was father's, and that perhaps one day it would be mine. She touched a spring and let me hear it chime the hours, and the quarters, and the minutes. There were a lot of other things besides, though I can't tell you quite what, and I fancy there were two or three more watches."

"Where did your mother keep this despatch-box?' asked Mr Sanford.

"Where we found it, and where she kept all her private papers--locked up in her bureau."

"But neither the bureau nor the box showed any signs of having been tampered with."

"Of course not. Mr Miller borrowed mother's keys, without asking leave, and had the free run of everything. We knew nothing about what was going on. All he had to do was to unlock things, and walk off with what he wanted. Pretty idiots we were to let him get clean away with them. Goodness only knows what he has taken."

Mr Sanford, who had been serious enough all through, looked graver than ever when Dick said that.

"That is exactly the point. Under the circumstances it is difficult for us to determine what may not be missing. I am afraid that Mr Miller is an unprincipled person."

"There's no fear about that--it's a dead sure thing. He's a confounded highway robber, as well as a miserable area sneak."

Dick's language is so strong. But Mr Sanford did not seem to notice it.

"If all the items mentioned were in the despatch-box at the time of your mother's decease, and the correctness of her list is to be implicitly relied upon--"

"If mother says a thing was there, it was there; you can bet on that."

"Then, in that case, it seems only too probable that Mr Miller has robbed you of a very large amount of valuable property--"

"I'd like to have the flogging of him!"

"Besides the will, which is itself of cardinal importance; and your father's jewels, which evidently were worth a considerable sum--"

"I should think so!"

"There is here a list of no less than thirteen securities, all of the highest class, which are stated to have represented--apparently at par value--over £50,000. At present prices they would be worth more. The presumption is that scrip, or bonds, or other legal documents representing ownership, were in that box. If such was the case, the question is--where are they now?"

"£50,000!" I cried.

I have no doubt that we all of us looked amazed at the magnitude of the sum.

"That scoundrel," declared Dick, "is living on them--on the fat of the land."

"Since they were all easily negotiable, and could be turned into cash at a moment's notice, if our suspicions are well founded--"

"Which they are!"

"It is practically certain that Mr Miller is in the enjoyment of a comfortable little fortune. Not the least extraordinary part of the matter is, that had not your sister come upon this list, almost, as it seems, by accident, we might never have known that such securities were in existence. As it is, I fear we shall have some trouble in tracing their possession to Mr Miller; and still more trouble in tracing him."

It was ever so long--months and months--after I had found out what ought to have been in the despatch-box, that I went on a tremendous expedition--to London, all by myself. I was to meet Hetty Travers and her mother at St James's Hall--and perhaps Mr Sanford might be there, but he could not be sure--and then we were all going to a concert together. That was a Saturday. Hetty lived at Beckenham. And after the concert I was going to stay with her until the Monday.

That was the programme.

At home it was a lovely morning. So I thought I would go up by a pretty early train and do some shopping. I had quite a lot of money, and I wanted ever so many things, and you can buy things much better in London than at West Marden. It was true that I did not know much about London; for instance, I could not have found my way from St Paul's Churchyard to Regent Street. But I had heard Dick say that when you did not know your way to a place, all you had to do was to jump into a hansom and trust to the driver. He maintained that while there was a hansom to be found no one need be lost in town. So that was just what I did do. I took one from London Bridge to Oxford Street; then, when I had got what I wanted there, another to Regent Street, which, driving, seemed really no distance at all; and then a third to St Paul's Churchyard. Then, just as I was getting as hungry as anything, and was wondering where I could get something to eat, I found that all the shops were actually closing, and that I had scarcely any time left in which to get to St James's Hall. I get into a cab, and told the man to drive as fast as he could; it was then past two, and I was supposed to be there at half-past.

He went off at a pretty good pace. But he had scarcely gone any distance when I saw on the pavement, a little way in front--the Ogre! Mr Stephen Miller! The sight of him drove everything else clean out of my head. I jumped up in the cab, exclaiming,--

"Stop! stop!"

I daresay the cabman though I was going to jump out while he was going; and I believe I should have done so if he had gone on. But he pulled his horse back on to its haunches, and out I jumped. The Ogre, sublimely unconscious of who was behind him, had moved aside as if he were about to enter a great stone building which he had just reached. However, I was in front of him before he could get to the door; and I lost no time in coming to the point.

"Mr Miller," I cried, "where's mother's will, and father's jewels, and all our money?"

He stared at me as if I were the last person he expected--or desired--to see; and I daresay I was. I thought at first that he was going to turn on his heel and run. But that was only for a moment. After he had recovered from the sudden shock--and the sight of me must have been a shock to him--he glared with his horrid bloodshot eyes as if he would have liked to devour me, bones and all.

"I fancy there must be some mistake. I have not the pleasure of knowing who you are."

His wicked untruthfulness took me aback.

"You don't know who I am?--You do!--I'm Molly Boyes!"

"Unfortunately I have not the honour of knowing who Molly Boyes may be. And as I have a pressing appointment, I am afraid you must excuse me."

He put out his arm and, thrusting me on one side, dashed through the swing door into the building in front of which we were standing. He gave me such a push that it was a wonder I did not fall right over. By the time I had recovered myself sufficiently to rush after him there was nothing of him to be seen. He had either vanished into air, or into one of the innumerable offices which apparently the place contained. In front of me was a staircase; beyond it was a passage; on my right was a second passage; on my left a third. In which direction he had gone there was nothing to show. While I was standing there, feeling rather silly, a gentleman came out of one of the doors towards me. He was not bad looking; but he wore a green tie with pink spots which I did not like at all.

"Can you tell me," I asked, "where Mr Miller has gone?"

"Mr Miller? I'm afraid I don't know the name. Has he offices here?"

"He just came in!"

I described him as well as I could. The stranger seemed interested. He even smiled.

"Your description sounds like Mr Kenrick, of The People's Stock Exchange. The offices are on the fourth floor. You will see the name on a tablet against the wall."

It did not seem very promising. Kenrick did not sound like Miller. And I could not conceive of his having any connection with such an institution as The People's Stock Exchange. I was sorry for it if he had. Still up the stairs I went--it was a long way up to the fourth floor; and there, in black letters on a white tablet, amidst lots of other names, was "No. 169. The People's Stock Exchange. Mr George Kenrick." I went first round one corner, then round another--there was not a soul to be seen from whom to ask the way--and I was commencing to wonder if I should have to keep on chasing myself round corners for the rest of the afternoon when all of a sudden I heard someone shouting at the top of his voice. A door opened at the end of the passage in which I was and someone came out, addressing to someone within remarks which were uttered in such stentorian tones that it was quite impossible to avoid hearing what he said--

"I'll tell you what you are, Mr Kenrick--you're a scoundrel and a thief! And clever though you are, you'll find yourself at the Old Bailey yet before you've done--you dirty rascal!"

He shut the door with a bang which thundered through the place. He was very tall, with a long grey beard, and his hat crammed over his eyes; and as he strode past me he did look so very angry that I did not dare ask who he had been speaking to. But the language he had used was so extremely applicable to the Ogre, that I felt convinced it must be he. So I went to the room out of which he had come. Sure enough, on the glass door was "The People's Stock Exchange." I entered, and there, on the other side of a polished counter, was Mr Stephen Miller.

"I have found you again," I remarked.

He was talking to a young man--quite a boy, in fact--who was moving towards the door as I went in.

"You'll be here at the usual time on Monday?"

"Yes, sir."

The youth regarded me with what I almost felt was a twinkle in his eye; though I had not the remotest notion what he meant by such behaviour. And the Ogre and I were left alone. I repeated my previous observation.

"You perceive that I have found you again."

"It would seem so." He stood rubbing his chin and regarding me with a contemplative kind of air. He was ever so much better dressed than he ever was in our part of the world; but, in spite of it, he looked just the same disreputable, untrustworthy object. If anything, his face was fatter and redder than it used to be; and his eyes more bloodshot. "Come into my private office."

He led the way into a room beyond, and I followed. When we were in he stared at me again; and this time he grinned.

"You're quite a beauty--that's a pretty frock of yours. Perhaps it's the frock that does it--you never know." His manner made my cheeks burn. "Well, and how are they all at The Chase?"

Fancy his having the impudence to ask such a question!

"Thank you; they are all quite well. I want my mother's will--and father's jewels--and the securities which were in the brown despatch-box."

"You do, do you? Are they missing?"

"You know very well that they are missing--since you took them."

"Took them, did I? Odd what things one sometimes does by accident."

"It was no accident, as you are perfectly aware. Will you give them to me, please, as I am in a hurry?"

"Give them to you? Do you expect me to hand them over now--at once?"

"Most certainly. I don't intend to leave until I have them."

"Suppose I leave?"

"Then I shall follow you until we come to a policeman, to whom I shall give you in charge."

He laughed; though what there was to laugh at in the notion of being locked up was beyond my comprehension.

"So that's the idea. Well, I shouldn't like being sent to prison--it's not to be expected--"

"You will have brought it upon yourself."

"So I'll tell you what I'll do; you give me a kiss and I'll hand over."

I flamed up.

"How dare you say such a thing!"

"All right! all right!--you look spiteful; and it seems you are. Sorry I asked for what isn't to be had. I keep what you want outside; if you wait here I'll go and fetch it."

His insolent suggestion had made me so furious that, without stopping to think, supposing he meant what he said, I let him go. The door closed behind him as he went; but as there was a spring which made it close, I saw nothing strange in that. And I waited. His horrible proposal--and something, too, about his words, looks and manner made me conscious of a distinct sense of discomfort. I half wished that I had allowed him to escape, and made no attempt to follow. I glanced at my watch. It was past half-past two! What would the cabman think of me outside--and I had left three parcels in his cab!--and Hetty and her mother waiting for me at St James' Hall. I went to the door and turned the handle. It declined to yield. Imagining that there might be some trick in opening it, perhaps connected with the spring--because I knew that they had all sorts of queer inventions in the city--I rapped at the panel.

"Mr Miller!" I cried. "Mr Miller! Will you open this door, please, and be quick, because I'm late already!"

No answer. I rapped again--and called again. Then--at last!--I suspected. I stooped down and saw that the door was locked. I banged at it with both my fists.

"Mr Miller! How dare you lock the door. Open it at once and let me out!"

But not a bit of it. That was not his intention at all. Whether he was or was not on the other side I could not tell. It was a great, strong, heavy door, and so long as he chose to keep it locked, it was impossible for me to find out.

Suppose he was not there? if it was all a trick? and if he had imposed on my simplicity and made a fool of me? The mere possibility of such a thing made me so mad that tears of rage came into my eyes. There must be a bell somewhere. There was; an electric bell, represented by an ivory button. I pressed it: kept on pressing it. No result seemed to follow. I could hear no sound. Was it ringing? If so, where?

As I listened, I was struck by the curious silence. I had no idea that in London it could be so still. Considering the hugeness of the buildings, and the clatter of the great thoroughfare through which I had come, it seemed so odd. Could I be alone in that great place? The prospect did not appear agreeable. I turned to the window. It was quite narrow, though tremendously high, and filled with frosted glass, or whatever they call it, so that I could not see through. I had to stand on a chair to reach the top of the sash. Then I could not see out.

I seemed to have got myself into a thoroughly delightful position. Time was getting on. Hetty and her mother would be wondering if anything had happened to me. Something certainly had. But they would never guess what. How long was I to stop in that room? This was Saturday. I seemed to remember having heard that people left business early on Saturdays. I myself had seen that the shops were being closed. Perhaps that was the explanation of the silence. Everybody might have gone. The whole place might be deserted. In that case not a creature might be back till Monday. I had heard the Ogre say to the departing youth,--

"You'll be here at the usual time on Monday?"

Monday! Was it conceivable that I might have to stay in that wretch's office till--Monday! Long before then I should be raving mad. I picked up a ruler off the table and hammered with it on the door and shouted. How I shouted! But no one took the slightest notice--I doubted very much if there was anyone to hear. The room through which I had come was much larger than the one in which I was. The passage was beyond. If, as was probable, the outer door was also closed, then my noise would hardly penetrate into the passage. Apart from the fact that the offices were at the end of the passage, and that no one would be likely to come that way, except on business. And if business was over until Monday?

But I was not disposed to simply hammer and shout. I proposed to do something. Monte Cristo escaped from the Chateau d'If. And if by any possible means I could win my way out I did not intend to remain the Ogre's prisoner a moment longer than I could help. So, by way of a commencement, I smashed the window. With the ruler I deliberately knocked out as much of the frosted glass as I could. Most of it went outside and, amid the prevailing stillness, it seemed to make quite a terrible noise. I found that the look-out was into a sort of well. The frame was so narrow, and the fringe of broken glass so obvious, that I could not lean right out; and from as far as I could get I could not see the bottom, nor the top either. There were walls and windows above, below, all around. And, so far as I could perceive, nothing else.

While I was wondering whatever I should do next, a window right opposite, on the other side of the well, was thrown up, and someone looked out, a masculine someone. I do not think I was ever so glad to see anyone in my life as I was to see that boy--he appeared to me to be a boy, though I daresay he supposed himself to be a man. The sight of me seemed to occasion him surprise--which was not to be wondered at.

"I beg your pardon, but--have you just broken that window?

"I have!"

"It made such an all-fired din that I thought something had happened."

"Something has happened! I'm shut up in here!"

"No? Are you? What a horrid shame. We're in the same box, because I'm shut up in here. Governor told me not to go till he came back from lunch, and as he's gone off with some other fellows to a regular spread, it looks as though he's never coming back again. And I ought to be down at Richmond for a cricket match. It looks like getting there! Though what they'll do without me I can't think. Because, apart from batting, with the leather I'm a marvel. My name's Clifford--perhaps you know my name? Last Saturday, playing for the Putney Pilgrims, I took eight wickets in nine overs. It was in the papers. Perhaps you saw it there. I don't know if you're interested in that sort of thing."

He rattled on at such a rate that he did not give me a chance to speak.

"I'm afraid you don't understand: I'm locked in here."

"Locked in? No? Not really?"

"Yes, really!" He was dense. "And I want you to come and break down the door and let me out."

"Break down the door? Me? What ho! Pray, are you trying to take a rise out of yours truly? I'm more than seven, you know."

"You don't look it; and you don't sound it either."

I tried to explain.

"If you will listen, I will endeavour to make you understand. This place belongs to a robber and a thief. I came to get back some of the things he has stolen. He's gone away and locked the door, and left me here, and I want you to come and let me out!"

"I say! Isn't that rather a rummy story?"

"I don't know if it's rummy or not--it's true! And if you don't want to see me throw myself out of the window you'll come, at once!"

"For goodness' sake, don't talk about throwing yourself out of the window. You'd make an awful mess if you did. It's a bit of a drop--Hollo! here's the governor!"

I heard a voice speaking behind him.

"Yes, here is the governor. And pray, Master Clifford, what are you doing there?" Master Clifford vanished. In his place appeared a short dark man, with an eyeglass and a moustache turned up at the ends. He smiled in my direction as if he had known me all his life. "Delighted to see you. Lovely afternoon, isn't it? You make a charming picture in that frame."

"I'm a prisoner!" I cried.

"You're what?"

"A prisoner!"

"You look as if it were more your custom to make captives of others. Are you in earnest?"

"Don't I sound as if I were in earnest? Of course I am in earnest!"

I tried to explain all over again. The stupidity of some people is extraordinary. Even when I had finished he did not seem to comprehend.

"Do you know that you're proposing that I should break into another man's premises?"

"Do you want me to stop locked in here till you do! Because I shall go mad and kill myself long before then."

"May I ask your name?"

"My name is Molly Boyes, and I live at The Chase, West Marden, and I ought to have met Hetty Travers at St James's Hall at half-past two, and now I don't know what time it is!"

"But I do. It's time I was off."

He spoke as if he did not care a button about me. I was seized with a perfect paroxysm of fear.

"Oh please--please--please--don't go and leave me!--please let me out!--please--please!"

I could not see his face through my blinding tears; but I fancy I startled him.

"My dear Miss Boyes! Don't distress yourself like that! You'll spoil those pretty eyes of yours! You mustn't think me a brute; but yours is such an extraordinary statement. But, as you do seem serious, I'll come round and see what I can do. By the way, where are you?"

"I'm at 169; it's called The People's Stock Exchange, and belongs to a man who calls himself Kenrick, but--his--real--name's--Stephen--Miller!"

"So that's The People's Stock Exchange! I wasn't aware we were such close neighbours. I begin to see daylight. So you're one of the sheep, and you've been fleeced! I fancy it won't be the first shindy they've had at that establishment. Here, Clifford, just go and find a policeman and bring him here! If you'll wait, Miss Boyes, I'll come round to you as soon as I possibly can."

He vanished--and I waited. As if there was anything else I could do! My heart sank directly he vanished from the window. He did not seem a bit in earnest. I felt convinced that he would not care a scrap if I was locked in there until the crack of given another glance at his watch, he would come to the conclusion that it was more than time for him to go off home to tea, and that it really was not worth while bothering about the girl over the way. He seemed that kind of man. Supposing he did? My last straw would be gone!

As the hours--which, I suppose, according to the clock, were only minutes--dragged past, and still nothing happened, I concluded that that was what he had done. What a state of mind I was in! I hammered with the ruler, and yelled and shouted, so that I might attract attention if anyone was about. And at last--such a long at last--I heard the outside door being opened; footsteps approached my door; there was a little fumbling with the keyhole; and--I was unlocked! There stood a porter-looking sort of person, a policeman, and the eye-glassed man from over the way. He had had more sense--and more heart--than I had imagined. He had hunted up a caretaker, who actually possessed a key--I think it was one key, though I own I do not see how it could have been--which opened every door in the place, and with it he had opened the one behind which I was imprisoned.

Oh, with what rapture I greeted those three extremely plain-looking men! No wonder they seemed pleased with themselves when I almost jumped into their arms!

That night I slept at Beckenham. Hetty and her mother were nearly out of their minds. Mr Sanford had gone to the concert. When I did not appear he telegraphed home to know what had become of me. On their replying that I had gone to London with the intention of going to the concert, he tore about in every direction. By the time I did turn up they appeared to have concluded that I must be dead. Their countenances when I told them my adventures!

When the Ogre left me locked in his private office he left The People's Stock Exchange for good. He never showed his face in that neighbourhood again. It seemed that he had used the money of which he had robbed us to help him to rob others. The People's Stock Exchange was a gigantic swindle. I did not quite understand how; but Mr Sanford said that he deserved penal servitude for life. Next time I see him he will probably get it.

I do not know what became of that cab of mine. Nor of the parcels which I left inside. And in them were some lovely things. It's a dreadful shame!

VI

[BREAKING THE ICE]

Shortly after my seventeenth birthday Mr Sanford and I had a serious difference of opinion which almost amounted to a quarrel. I do not say that the fault was entirely his. But that is not the point. The point is whether, every time you happen to be not quite exactly right, you are to be treated as if you were a mere worm, and have your age thrown in your face.

It was not my fault that I was only seventeen. As Mr Pitt said--I remember reading about it at Mrs Sawyer's--being young is a crime one grows out of. Rome was not built in a day. You cannot do everything at once. It is quite certain that you cannot be ninety in five minutes. I was perfectly aware that Mr Sanford was twenty-five. It is not a time of life against which I have a word to say. I feel sure that it is a delightful age. But I cannot understand why persons who are twenty-five should consider themselves so immensely superior to persons who are only seventeen. Or, if they are superior, and are known to be, that is no reason why they should show it.

On my birthday Mr Sanford gave me a box of gloves. Now I am five feet five and a half inches high. I know I am, because when Dick made me stand up against the wall with my hair down and a book on my head, he said he never should have thought it from the look of me. Which was not a nice thing to say. But then brothers have manners of their own. I want to know what size of hand a person who is nearly five feet six high ought to have. Because, directly I opened the box, I saw that they were lovely gloves, but that they were all six and a half.

"Oh, what a pity!" I cried. "They'll be like boats on me! I take six and a quarter!"

Of course, I am conscious that it was not precisely a civil remark to make; and, had I reflected, I might not have made it. But it was out before I even guessed it was coming. As it was out, it was. And, anyhow, it was simply the truth. At the time, Mr Sanford was as nice as possible. He expressed his regret for the mistake which had occurred, and volunteered to change them.

He did change them. Four or five days afterwards he came with another box. It was the sixteenth of November, a Thursday. As it turned out to be a memorable day to me, I have the best of reasons for keeping the exact date in my mind. I shall never forget it--never--not if I live long enough to lose my memory. It was very cold. All the week it had been freezing. That is, off and on. Because I admit that it might occasionally have risen above freezing point. But it certainly had been freezing all the day before, and all that morning--hard. Ice was everywhere. I had made up my mind to try it, and had just finished cleaning my skates when Mr Sanford came in.

"Why," he exclaimed, when he saw them, "what are you going to do with those?"

"I'm going to skate with them. What is one generally supposed to do with skates?"

"But, my dear Miss Boyes, it's impossible. After two or three days' more frost, perhaps, but at present the ice won't bear."

Now there was just that something about his tone which nettled me. It was the way he had of taking it for granted that, because he said a thing, the matter was necessarily at an end, since it was impossible to imagine that anyone would venture on remonstrance.

"I daresay it will be strong enough to bear me."

"I very much doubt it."

"Do you? Do you skate?"

"A little."

"Then, since that sister and those brothers of mine have gone off, they alone know where, may I venture to suggest that you should come with me?"

"I shall be delighted--as far as the ice. I'm sure you'll find that it won't bear. And, anyhow, I've no skates."

"There are a pair of Dick's. They're not very rusty. And I don't suppose you'll find them very much too small."

He took them up--and smiled.

"As you say, they're not very rusty, and I daresay my feet are not very much more gigantic than Dick's, but--"

"But what?"

"I shall be very glad to come with you to examine the ice. But when you get to it you'll find that skating is out of the question."

"If I get to the ice I promise you that I'll go on it. I am passionately fond of skating, and as we so seldom get any, I like to take advantage of every chance I get. Besides, I am not afraid of a little cold water, even if it does happen to be a degree or two under the usual temperature."

He laughed. He had a way of laughing when I said things which were not meant to be comical which puzzled me and annoyed me too. Fortunately for himself he changed the subject, handing me the box he had been carrying.

"I've brought the gloves. This time I hope you will find that they are not like boats. I am credibly informed that they are six and a quarter."

"Thank you so much. I really am ashamed of myself for giving you so much trouble--it's so sweet of you. Oh, what lovely gloves. Just the shades I like. As I have brought none down with me I think I'll put a pair on now."

I ought to have known better. I had, as I have said, just finished cleaning my skates, and had been washing my hands, and, in consequence, they were cold. It is not, at any time, the work of only a moment to put on a brand new pair of properly-fitting gloves. Everybody knows that, who knows anything at all. They require coaxing. Especially is this the case when your hands are cold. And certainly the task is not rendered easier by the knowledge that you are being observed by critical, supercilious eyes, towards whose owner you entertain a touch of resentment. Those gloves would not go on. The consciousness that Mr Sanford was staring at me with obvious amusement made me, perhaps, more awkward than I should have been. But, whatever the cause, I do not think I ever had so much trouble with a pair of gloves either before or since.

Presently he spoke.

"Rather tight, aren't they?"

"Tight? What do you mean? I suppose they're six and a quarter?"

"Oh, yes, they're six and a quarter. But don't you think it might have been better to have kept the original six and a half for the sake of the additional ease?"

"Ease? You don't want ease in a glove."

"No? That's rather a novel point of view. Do you want it to be uneasy, then?"

"A properly fitting glove never is uneasy. You are possibly not aware that a new glove always is a little difficult to get on the first time."

"Yes--so it seems."

Something in his tone annoyed me, particularly the impertinent suggestion which I felt sure it was intended to convey. I gave an angry try at the glove, and, behold! it split. I know I went crimson all over. Mr Sanford laughed outright.

"When you try to cram a quart into a pint pot something is bound to go."

A ruder remark I had never had addressed to me. My own brothers could not have been more vulgar. Even they had never compared my hand with either a quart or a pint pot. An observation of that kind it was impossible that I should condescend to notice. Removing the glove, with all the dignity at my command, I replaced it in the box.

"I think that I had better wear a pair of gloves which have become adapted to the unfortunate conformation of my hands."

"But, Molly--"

"I don't know who has given you permission to use my Christian name, Mr Sanford. I have noticed that you have done so two or three times recently. I am not a relative of yours."

His eyes twinkled. Although I did not look at him I knew they did, because of the peculiar way in which he spoke. When they twinkled there was always something in his voice which, to the trained ear, was unmistakable. Not that I wish it to be inferred that I had paid any attention to Mr Sanford's oddities. It was the mere result of my tendency to notice trifles.

"But, Miss Boyes, I never could understand why a woman of reasonable and proper and delightful proportions should show a desire to be the possessor of a hand which, as regards dimensions, would be only suited to a dwarf."

"Is it I you are calling a monster, or only my hand?"

"Neither. I should not presume to call you anything. But I would take leave to observe that you have as dainty, as well-shaped, as capable, and, I may add, as characteristic a pair of hands as I have ever seen."

"Personal remarks are not in the best of taste, are they? I believe I have had occasion to point that out to you before."

I took that box of gloves upstairs and I banged them on the dressing-table. When I looked into the glass I saw that my cheeks were glowing, and my eyes too. It was plain that I was in a perfect passion. The most exasperating part of it was that I knew what a fright bad temper made of me. It always does of your black sort of people.

Never did I meet anyone with a greater capacity for rubbing you the wrong way than Mr Sanford. And so autocratic! I suppose that if he is of opinion that I ought to wear six and three-quarters I shall have to. But I will give him clearly to understand that, whatever size my hands may be, I shall wear sixes if I like. I do not propose to allow him to lay down the law to me, even on the question of gloves.

I kept him waiting as long as ever I could, though up in my bedroom, where there was no fire, it was positively freezing, and every moment I grew colder and colder, till I felt I must be congealing. But I knew that he hated waiting, so, while I dawdled, I wondered if everybody was crushed by everybody else as some people crushed me, or, at least, as they tried to. When I got down he was standing at the window, staring out into the grounds.

"Are you still there? I thought you would have gone. I trust that you have not remained on my account. I didn't hurry. Even an old pair of gloves cannot be put on in half a second."

"So it would appear."

"As you are not going to skate, and I am, I won't keep you."

"You were good enough to ask me to come with you to see if the ice would bear."

"I'm sure it will bear enough for me, though probably not enough for you. And as you're nervous, it's hardly worth while to put you to any further trouble. You would hardly find it amusing to stand on the bank and watch me skating."

"Well, I can fancy more objectionable occupations."

"Can you? There is no accounting for people's fancies."

"There certainly isn't."

"So, as I am already later than I intended, I will wish you good-day. And thank you so much for the gloves."

"Good-day, and pray don't mention the gloves--ever again. But I'm going with you all the same. I'll borrow Dick's skates on the off-chance, and ask his permission afterwards."

"Oh, I've no doubt that Dick will have no objection to your taking them; but as you're not going to skate, really, Mr Sanford, it's not the slightest use your coming."

"No use, but a great deal of pleasure for me. Let me carry your skates."

"Thank you, but I prefer to carry them myself."

He planted himself in front of me, looked me in the face, stretched out his arm, and took the skates from my hand. The astonishing part of it being that I did not offer the slightest resistance.

"I do declare, Mr Sanford, that you're the most dictatorial person I ever met. You appear to be under the impression that people are not entitled to have opinions of their own on any subject whatever. I suppose I may carry my own skates if I want to."

"Quite so. Suppose we start."

We did start; though I was more than half inclined--since he was evidently bent on accompanying me--not to go at all. From the way we were beginning I foresaw what would be the end; or, at least, I imagined I did. Because, of course, what actually did happen never entered my head even as a remote possibility.

I was in a vitriolic temper, which was not improved by the knowledge that I was behaving badly, and should, in all probability before long, behave much worse. There is nothing more galling than the consciousness that the person with whom you are angry is in the right, and knows it, and is therefore indisposed to take any notice of your tantrums, being resolved, do what you will, not to take you seriously. That was what used to make me so mad with Mr Sanford; he would not regard me as if I were a serious character. He would persist in treating me as if I were a child. Even if I did sometimes behave like one, it ought to have made no difference, since at seventeen you are not a child, and can behave exactly as you please, because you are grown up. Especially after the experience of the world which I had had.

The lake was more than a mile away from the house; amid the pine-trees in Mr Glennon's wood. A lovely walk. Particularly in that sort of weather. But, as the poet does not say, no prospect pleases when your temper is vile. The mere fact that I yearned to beg Mr Sanford's pardon for being so disagreeable made me nastier than ever. It may sound incredible; it is true. Such conversation as there was suggested that horrid game called "Snap"--played ill-naturedly.

"Are you an expert skater, Miss Boyes?"

"I can keep myself from falling, though, of course, I cannot compare with you."

"I assure you that I have no pretensions in that direction. Like you, I can keep myself from falling and that's all."

"Meaning, I presume, that I cannot even do that. Thank you."

Silence. I knew the man was smiling, although I did not look at him. After we had gone about another hundred yards he spoke again.

"I always think a woman looks so graceful on the ice."

"You won't think so any longer after you have seen me."

"I think I shall. I cannot conceive you as looking anything but graceful, anywhere, in any position."

"I don't think you need sneer."

"Miss Boyes."

"Mr Sanford?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"You beg my pardon? What for?"

"I don't quite know. But I feel you feel that it would be more becoming on my part. So I do so. Please will you forgive me?"

"If you have no objection I should prefer to turn back. I do not care to skate to-day."

"You need not skate. As I have already remarked, I am convinced that the ice will not bear. But we can at least continue our walk."

"I shall skate if we do go on. On that I am determined."

"You are not always so aggressive."

"Nor are you always so domineering. Though I admit that as a rule you are. At home they must find you unbearable."

"I hope not. I am sorry you find me domineering. Particularly as you are yourself so--plastic."

"I am not plastic. I don't know what you mean. But I am sure I am nothing of the kind."

"Molly."

We had reached the stile over which you have to climb to get into the wood. He had crossed first, and I was standing on the top step--he was holding my hand in his to help me over. I did not notice that he had called me Molly.

"Yes?"

"I wish you would be pleasant to me sometimes. You don't know what a difference it would make to me."

"What nonsense! I am perfectly convinced that, under any circumstances, nothing I could say or do could be of the slightest consequence to you."

"Couldn't it? You try!"

"I am much too young."

"Too young! Too young!"

There was all at once something in his voice and manner which gave me quite a start. I snatched my hand away and jumped down to the ground.

"We can't stop here all day if we mean to do any skating, and I for one certainly do."

I marched off at about five miles an hour. He wore an air of meekness which was so little in keeping with his general character that, at the bottom of my heart, it rather appalled me.

"I would sooner be snubbed by you than flattered by another woman."

"Snubbed by me! Considering how you're always snubbing me, that's amusing."

"I never mean to snub you."

"You never mean to? Then you must be singularly unfortunate in having to so constantly act in direct opposition to your intentions. To begin with, you hardly ever treat me as if I were a woman at all."

"Well, you are not a woman--are you--quite?"

"Mr Sanford! When you talk like that I feel--! Pray what sort of remark do you call that?"

"You are standing at the stepping stones."

"At the stepping-stones?"

"Happy is the man who is to lead you across them."

"I don't in the least understand you. And I would have you to know that I feel that it is high time that I should put childish things behind me; and I should like other people to recognise that I have done so."

"Childish things? What are childish things? Oh, Molly, I wish that you could always be a child. And the pity is that one of these days you'll be wishing it too."

"I'm sure I sha'n't. It's horrid to be a child."

"Is it?"

"You are always being snubbed."

"Are you?"

"No one treats you with the least respect; or imagines that you can possibly ever be in earnest. As for opinions of your own--it's considered an absurdity that you should ever have them. Look at you! You're laughing at me at this very moment."

"Don't you know why I am laughing at you, Molly?"

Again there was something in the way in which he asked the question which gave me the oddest feeling. As if I was half afraid. Ever since we had left the stile I had been conscious of the most ridiculous sense of nervousness. A thing with which, as a rule, I am never troubled. I was suddenly filled with a wild desire to divert the conversation from ourselves, no matter how. So I made a desperate plunge.

"Have you seen anything of Hetty lately?"

He was still for a moment, as if the sudden reference to his cousin occasioned him surprise; and that not altogether of a pleasant kind. Though I did not see why it should have done.

"I was not speaking of Hetty. Nor am I anxious to, just now."

"Aren't you? Have you quarrelled with her, as well?"

"As well? Why do you say as well?"

"Oh, I don't know. You're always quarrelling."

"That's not true."

"Thank you. Is that a snub? Or merely a compliment?"

"Molly, why will you treat me like this? It's you who treat me like a child, not I you."

"There's the lake at last, thank goodness!"

I did not care if it was rude or not. I was delighted to see it, so I said so plainly. What is more, I tore off towards it as hard as I could. My rush was so unexpected that I was clean away before he knew it. All the same he reached the lake as soon as I did. He could run, just as he could do everything else. The ice looked splendid, smooth as a sheet of glass. All about were the pines with their frosted branches. They seemed to stand in rows, so that they looked like the pillars in the aisles of some great cathedral. And then pine-trees always are so solemn and so still.

"Give me my skates, please. I want to get them on at once. Doesn't the ice look too lovely for anything?

"It's not a question of what it looks like, but of what it will bear." He stepped on to the edge. It gave an ominous crack. I daresay, if he had waited, long enough, it would have given way beneath him. But he did not. He hopped back on to the solid ground. "You see!"

"Excuse me, but that is exactly what I do not do. Here it is under the shadow of the trees. Besides, the water is so shallow that it is practically cat's ice. I'm sure it's all right a little further round and in the middle. It's often cracky near the edge."

"I am sure it is not safe anywhere."

"Will you please give me my skates, Mr Sanford?"

He looked at me. So as to let him see that I had no intention of being cowed, I looked back at him.

"I hope that, this once, you will be advised. I assure you it is unsafe."

"Please give me my skates."

He laughed, in that queer way he had of laughing at unexpected moments, when there certainly seemed nothing to laugh at.

"Good. Then it is decided. We will both go skating."

"Both? It is not necessary that we should do anything of the kind. I wish you would let me do as I like, without criticism. Who appointed you to have authority over me? Who suggested that because I choose to do a thing you should do it too? I prefer not to have you attached to my apron-strings. Give me my skates. You can go home. I would rather you did."

"If you skate, I skate also."

"As you please, if you can get over your timidity. There is room on the lake for two. If you will choose one end I will have the other."

"I shall skate where you do."

"Mr Sanford--you are intolerable!"

"Indeed, I am disposed to act on your courteous suggestion, and go home, and take your skates with me.

"If you do, I will never speak to you again."

"Don't pledge yourself too deeply. You spoke of having put childish things behind you. I did not suspect you of having been such a mistress of irony."

"Will you give me my skates?"

"Certainly. I will put them on for you. Where do you think the ice is--strongest?"

We were walking along the bank, I with my nose in the air, he white with rage. It wasn't easy to make him lose his temper, but when you did succeed, he was wicked.

"This will do. I won't trouble you for your assistance. I prefer to put on my own skates, thank you."

He dug his heel right through the ice.

"Do you call this strong?"

"I wish you would not do that. You forget that I am not quite so heavy as you." We went on a little further. Then I stood on the edge. "You perceive that it will bear me. Now--for about the dozenth time--will you give me my skates?"

"I will put them on for you."

"I have already told you that I will do that for myself."

"Don't be absurd. Sit down on the bank." He spoke to me as if I were a slave. As it was evidently useless to remonstrate, I obeyed, placing myself on the sloping bank. "There is a condition I must make. If I put your skates on first you must promise not to start till I am ready."

"I shall promise nothing of the kind."

"Then in that case I am afraid I shall have to keep you waiting till I am equipped."

He actually did too. And as Dick's skates were in rather a muddle, or he did not understand them, or something, it took him a tremendous time to get them properly attached to his boots, while I sat on the bank and froze. But I tried to keep myself as warm as I could by an occasional genial remark.

"You understand, Mr Sanford, that when we do get home I will never speak to you again. I never want to see you again either."

"The betting is that we never shall get home again, since it is probable that we shall both of us be drowned in the lake. That is, if there is a sufficient depth of water to drown us."

"Sufficient depth! Why, I'm told that in places there are twenty feet. I imagine that that is enough to drown even you, big though you seem to think yourself. Though I totally fail to see why we should both of us be drowned. Why can't I drown by myself?"

"If you drown I drown."

"That is really too ridiculous. Pray, who is talking like a child now? I quite fail to see how it can matter to you what becomes of me."

"You do know."

"I do not know. I have not the faintest shadow of a notion."

"Don't you know?"

He twisted himself round and glared at me in such a fashion that I was alarmed.

"Mr Sanford, don't look at me like that!"

"Then kindly remember that there are limits even to my patience."

"I should think that your patience was like the jam in the tart; the first bite you don't get to it, and the second you go clean over it."

"I am glad to be able to afford you so favourable an opportunity for the exercise of your extremely pretty wit. Please give me your foot."

He took it without waiting for any giving. Then immediately proceeded to comment on it, as if it had not belonged to me, or as if I had not been there.

"A dainty foot it is; and reasonably shod in decently fitting boots; not six and a quarter."

"You still seem not to understand that my size in gloves is six and a quarter."

"I'm so dull."

"You are. And something else besides."

He simply ignored my hint. I hate people not to notice when I intend to sting them. It makes you feel so helpless. He went on calmly discussing my foot.

"It's worth while allowing you to flesh the arrows of your malice in one's hide for the privilege of holding this between one's fingers."

"Do you think so?"

"I do."

It was strange how excessively odd an effect his touch had on me. It made me thrill from top to toe. I could scarcely speak. When I stood, to my amazement I found that I was trembling.

"Are your skates comfortable?"

"They seem all right."

"Molly, let us understand each other. Are you bent on skating?"

"I am. Though there is not the slightest reason why you should."

"The ice may be sufficiently thick in places, but it certainly is not all over, and, as you don't know where the weak points are, it will be at the risk of your life if you venture on it."

"It is strong enough to bear me, though it is very possible that it may not be strong enough to bear you also. So, if you do not desire to add to the risk on which you are so insistent, you will not force on me your company."

"If you go I go also."

"Then don't talk so much--and come!"

He had been holding my hand. I snatched it from him and was on the ice. In an instant he was at my side. I was filled with a curious excitement. Something had got into my blood, microbes perhaps, of a fever-generating kind. The various passages of arms which we had had together seemed, all at once, to have reached their climax. I was seized with a sudden frenzy of resolve to show him, once for all, that what it was my pleasure to do that I would do. I craved for motion; yearned for movement--if only as a means of relief for my pent-up feelings. Longed for a flight through the air, to rush through it, to race. Especially to race that man--or to escape from him. I did not care much which.

I struck out for all that I was worth. As I had surmised, the ice was in perfect condition as regards its surface. Sufficiently elastic to enable the blade of one's skates to bite on to it, smooth enough to offer no impediment to their onward glide. One skimmed over it almost without conscious effort. The ecstasy of doing something; the sense of freedom which it gave; the delight of tearing through the keen, clear atmosphere; of feeling it upon one's cheeks--ruffling one's hair--exhilarating one's whole being--breathing it in great gulps into one's lungs--these were the things I needed. And I had hardly been enjoying them half a dozen seconds when the bonds which had seemed to bind me parted, proving themselves to be but the phantasmal creations of a crooked mood. And I laughed, in my turn.

"Isn't it glorious?"

"While it lasts."

"Why the reservation? Isn't it glorious, now?"

We had gone right across the lake. We swung round at a right angle.

"I thought it wasn't safe!"

"What's that?"

Just my luck! Scarcely were the words out of my lips than there was an ominous sound.

"That's nothing. I thought everybody knew that virgin ice make eccentric noises; we're the first to test its quality. That shows how safe it is."

"Does it? I think there may be something in your theory about the middle being best. Suppose we cross to the other side again."

The sound did go on.

"It's because we're skirting the shore. If you'll admit that I am right for once in a way I'll concede that you may be."

"I'll concede anything if you'll come away from this."

"Then I'll race you to our starting-point!"

We had been keeping within perhaps a dozen feet of the land. Sharply turning I made for the centre. I had not taken half a dozen strides when the cracking noise increased to a distinctly uncomfortable degree. I felt the ice heaving beneath my feet. He was at my side; it was preposterous to talk about racing him level. He could have given me seventy-five yards out of a hundred.

"We have struck a bad place. Don't stop; go as fast as you can."

"I'm going as fast as I can. I shall be all right. You go in front."

"Give me your hand!"

"No!"

"Give me your hand!"

I did not give him my hand--he snatched it. As he did so, something went. We did not stop to see what. How he managed I did not, and do not, understand. But I know he gripped my hand as in an iron vice, started off at about seventy miles an hour, and made me keep up with him.

"Don't!" I cried; as well as I could while I gasped for breath.

"Come!" he said.

And I had to come. And before I knew it we were standing on the shore, and I was half beside myself with rage.

"How dare you? Do you suppose that I'm an idiot, and that you can haul me about as if you were my keeper? What did you do it for?"

"I fancy I saved your life."

"Saved my life! Saved your own, you mean. You are an elephant, not I; and if you would only relieve the ice of the weight of your huge bulk, everything would be all right. But you are so grossly selfish that you hate the idea of anyone engaging in a pleasure which you cannot share--and better still, go home; and let me amuse myself exactly as I choose."

"Molly! you are not going on again!"

"I am going on again!--I am! And you dare to try and stop me--you dare!

I imagine that the expression of my countenance startled him. He had planted himself directly in front of me. But when he saw me looking like black murder he moved aside. In an instant I had passed him, and was off towards the centre of the lake.

Whether the double burden which the ice had had to bear had been too severe a strain for its, as yet, still delicate constitution, I cannot say. I only know that, as soon as I was clear off the shore, in spite of my blind fury, I realised that I really was an idiot, and one, too, who was badly in need of a keeper. It groaned and creaked, and heaved in every direction; seeming to emit an increasingly loud crack with every forward stride I took. Mr Sanford shouted.

"Molly, for God's sake, come back!"

I recognised--too late--the reason that was on his side. But the very vigour of his appeal served as a climax. I lost my head. I did not know what to do, where to go; turning this way and that, only to find the threats of danger greater. The question was settled for me. For the second time something went; the ice disappeared from beneath my feet--and I went in.

I felt--when I felt anything--almost as much surprise as consternation. Fortunately, I did not appear to have hit on a spot where the depth was twenty feet--or anything like it. For, instead of being drowned, the water did not come up to my armpits.

"Can you feel the bottom?"

The agony of fear which was in Philip Sanford's voice as he asked the question calmed me as if by magic.

"I think so; I seem to be standing in what feels like mud."

"Can you get your arms on to the ice and raise yourself? If you do it carefully it will probably bear you."

"I am afraid not. I seem to be too deep in to get a proper purchase."

"Where can I get a rope?

"Jennings' farm is the nearest house; and that's the other side of the stile."

"Do you very much mind waiting there? I'll be back inside five minutes."

My heart sank at the prospect of being left alone, even for an instant.

"I'd rather--I'd rather you did something now. I'm afraid--I'm afraid I'm sinking deeper. And it's so cold. Can't you do anything at all?"

"I'll do my best."

He did his best; while I watched--how I watched! He selected a part where the ice had not as yet been subjected to any strain, and carefully advanced towards me. It bore him better than I--and perhaps he--had expected.

"It's all right," he cried. "I shall get to you! Cheer up! And keep as still as you can!"

Then it cracked. And I feared for him. If he should have chanced on a spot where the depth was twenty feet! And should be drowned before my eyes! The cracking noise grew more instead of less.

"I fancy I shall do better by lying down and taking to my hands and knees; it will be spreading my weight over a larger surface."

He lay flat on the ice; wriggling towards me somehow, like a snake. It was a pretty slow process; especially as the icy water was wrapping my draperies about me and freezing the blood in my veins; and I was either sinking lower and lower, or else imagining that I was, which was just as bad. At last he came within three feet of me--within two--within reach. When I got my hands in his I burst out crying.

"Will you ever forgive me?" I sobbed.

"My darling!"

"I'll always do as you wish me to in the future--always--if I'm not drowned."

"My sweet!"

I did not notice what he was saying to me; nor, for the matter of that, what I was saying to him. Though I should not have cared if I had. I was too far gone. He put his hands underneath my arms; but directly he began raising me the ice on which he was lying gave way, and, in another second he was standing beside me in the water. Just as I was thinking of starting screaming, for I made sure that it was all over with both of us, he lifted me as if I were a baby, and I found that the water scarcely came over his waist, and he kissed me.

And I never was so happy; although, for all I knew, at that very moment we might be drowning.

But we did not drown. We reached the shore, though it took us a tremendous time to do it. Because Philip had to break every bit of ice in front of us. And though none of it was strong enough to bear, it was not easy to break. Luckily the water grew shallower as we advanced. So it must have been somewhere else that it was twenty feet.

"Do you think you can run?" Philip asked, when we stood on the dry ground at the end.

"I can--and will--do anything you tell me to--anything on earth."

He laughed.

"It occurs to me that it was perhaps as well you had that little attack of eccentricity just now; otherwise it might have been ages before we arrived at an understanding."

I was entirely of his opinion. I knew he was right. But then he always is.

We ran all the way home; except when we stopped at intervals, to say things. Though it was frightfully difficult; because, of course, all my clothes were sopping. But I was never the least bit ill. Nor was Philip. I changed directly I got in; and Philip changed into a suit of Dick's. It did not fit him, but he looked awfully handsome. And so like a great overgrown boy. So it did not matter if I did behave like a child.

When Nora and the boys came home they opened their eyes when they heard of our adventures. And what amazed me was that they seemed to take it quite for granted that Philip and I should be on the terms we were. Dick offered his congratulations--if they could be called congratulations--in the most extraordinary form.

"Well, old man, you've escaped one funeral, but you're booked for another--that's a cert.!"

The opinions which brothers allow themselves to utter of their sisters are astonishing. Fancy Dick calling me a funeral!

VII

[A GIRL WHO COULDN'T]

I am almost perfectly happy; but an unfaltering regard for the strict truth compels me to state that I am not quite. I wish I could--conscientiously--say that I was. But I cannot. I am aware that when a girl is engaged--especially when she is just engaged--her happiness ought to be flawless. And mine was, until--

However, perhaps I had better come to the point.

It is not my fault if I cannot do everything. I can do some things. When I turn the matter over in my mind, systematically, I feel justified in asserting that I can do a good many things. It is a well-known scientific fact that a Jack-of-all-trades is master of none. Therefore it seems to me to follow as a matter of course that because I can do the things which I can do, I cannot do the things which I cannot do. Nothing could be simpler. Or more obvious. We cannot all of us be Admirable Crichtons. And it is just as well that we cannot. And yet, merely on that account, I have lately suffered--well, I have suffered a good deal.

Nothing could have given me greater pleasure than the knowledge that Philip had a mother and two sisters. When Mrs Sandford--that is his mother--wrote and said that Philip had told her about the understanding he and I had come to; that she would very much like to know her dear son's future wife; so would I spend a few days with her in her cottage on the Thames, I was delighted. There was a note from each of the sisters--Bertha and Margaret--echoing their mother's words, and that also was very nice. I sat down then and there, and replied to them all three, arranging to go to them on the Tuesday following.

As soon as I had despatched my letters I became conscious of feeling--I hardly know how to put it--of feeling just the slightest atom unsettled; as if I had the shadow of a shade of a suspicion that I had let myself in for something which might turn out to be, I didn't quite know what. Directly I got there--or very nearly directly--certainly within half an hour of my arrival, I realised that my premonitions had not been airy fictions of my imagination; but sound and solid forebodings, which might--and probably would--turn out to be only too well justified by events.

In the first place I had to go without Philip. He was to have gone with me. And, of course, I had looked forward to our journey together in the train. But, at the last moment, he telegraphed to say that business detained him in town; would I go down without him, and he would join us on the morrow. I went without him. And, on the whole, I think I bore up very well. Especially considering that, just as the train was starting from Paddington, a woman got into my carriage with two dogs, a parrot in a huge cage, bundles of golf clubs, hockey clubs, tennis rackets, fishing rods, and goodness only knows what besides; her belongings filled the whole of her own side of the compartment, and most of mine. The last of them was being hustled in as the train was actually moving. As she was depositing them anywhere, and anyhow--I never saw anyone treat her belongings with scantier ceremony--she observed,--

"I cut that rather fine. Don't believe in getting to the station before the train is ready to start--but that was a bit of a shave."

It was a "bit of a shave"; the marvel was that she succeeded in catching the train at all. I--disliking to be bustled--had been there a good twenty minutes before it started, so--although she might not have been aware of it--there was a flavour of something about her remark which was very nearly personal.

It was only after we had gone some distance that the dogs appeared--not a little to my amazement. One of them--which came out of a brown leather hand-bag--was one of those long-bodied, short-legged creatures, which always look as if they were deformed. The other, a small black animal with curly hair, she took out of the pocket of the capacious coat which she was wearing. Directly she placed it on the floor of the carriage it flew at me, as if filled with a frenzied desire to tear me to pieces. While it was doing its best to bark itself hoarse, its owner removed a green cover from the parrot's cage; whereupon the bird inside commenced to make a noise upon its own account, as if with the express intention of urging that sooty fragment to wilder exertions. That compartment was like a miniature pandemonium.

"Don't let them worry you," remarked the mistress of the travelling menagerie.

But as she made not the slightest attempt to stop their worrying me, I did not quite understand what she expected I was going to do. When the black dog got the hem of my skirt into its mouth, and began to pull at it with its tiny teeth, I did remonstrate.

"I am afraid your dog will tear my dress."

"Not she! It's only her fun; she won't hurt you."

I was not afraid of the creature hurting me; but my skirt. The mistress's calmness was sublime. Suffering her minute quadruped to follow--without the smallest effort to control it!--its own quaint devices, she was serenely attaching a new tip to a billiard cue which she had taken out of a metal case. As if she felt that her proceedings might impress me with a sense of strangeness, she proffered what she perhaps meant to be an explanation.

"Always tip my own cue. I've got a cement which sticks; and I like my tip to be just so. If you want to be sure of your cue, tip it yourself."

Presently my liliputian assailant passed from unreasonable antagonism to a warmth of friendship which was almost equally disconcerting. Springing--after one or two failures, on to the carriage seat, it deposited itself in the centre of my lap--nearly knocking my book out of my hands; and, without a with-your-leave, or by-your-leave, but with the most take-it-for-granted air imaginable, prepared for slumber. Perceiving which, the short-legged dog descending, in its turn, to the floor of the carriage, began to prowl round and round me, sniffing at my skirts in a manner which almost suggested that there was something about me which was not altogether nice. All of a sudden the parrot, which had been taking an unconcealed interest in the proceedings, discovered a surprising, and, hitherto, wholly unsuspected capacity for speech.

"Don't be a fool!" he said.

Whether the advice was addressed to me, or to the short-legged dog, I could not say. But it was so unexpected, and was uttered with so much clearness--and was such an extremely uncivil thing to utter--that I quite jumped in my seat. The lady with the billiard cue made a comment of her own.

"That bird's a magnificent talker; and that's his favourite remark."

It proved to be. I do not know how many times that parrot advised somebody not to be a fool before we reached our journey's end; but the advice was repeated at intervals of certainly less than two minutes. And as the creature kept its eyes fixed intently on me, there was a suggestiveness in its bearing as to the direction for which its "favourite remark" was intended, which was in the highest degree unflattering.

When we stopped at my station a girl coming up to the carriage door began showering welcomes on my companion and her creatures with a degree of fluency which pointed to an intimate acquaintance with all of them.

"Hollo, Pat, so you've come!--Hollo, Tar!"--this was to the small black animal. "Hollo, Stumps!"--this was to the short-legged dog. "Hollo, Lord Chesterfield!"--this was to that excessively rude parrot, who promptly acknowledged the greeting by rejoining,--

"Don't be a fool!"

Then, seeing that I was only waiting for the removal of some of the impedimenta to enable me to get out, the girl exclaimed,--

"Are you Molly Boyes?" I admitted that I was. "I'm Bertha Sanford--awfully glad to see you. This is Miss Patricia Reeves-- commonly known as Pat. Great luck your coming down together in the same compartment; you'll be as intimate as if you'd known each other for years."

I was not so sure of that. More--I doubted if Miss Patricia Reeves and I ever should be intimate, as I understood intimacy. Still worse, I was disposed to be dubious if Miss Reeves's bosom friend could ever be mine.

A pony phaeton was waiting outside the station, with another girl in it. This proved to be Margaret Sanford. She welcomed "Pat" and "Pat's" etceteras with as much effusion as her sister had done. There was a discussion as to what was to happen. Since the phaeton would hold at most three, somebody would have to walk. Miss Reeves insisted on being the someone; she and Bertha immediately set off at what struck me as being a good five miles an hour. Until then I had supposed myself to be no bad pedestrian for a mere girl; but when I saw the style in which those two were covering the ground I was glad that I had been permitted to ride.

Not that the ride was one of unalloyed bliss. The journey down from town had not been all that I had hoped that it would be; how different it would have been if Philip had been my companion instead of Miss Reeves. And, somehow, the discovery that she was bound for the same destination as I was; and was--plainly--an old and intimate friend, jarred. I do not believe that I am hard to get on with; no one has ever given me any reason to suppose it. And yet, all at once, the fact that the Sanford atmosphere was one in which Miss Reeves was thoroughly at home seemed to hint, with distressing significance, that it was one in which I distinctly should not shine.

The impression heightened as Margaret drove me along. She conversed on matters of which I, for the most part, knew little, and, up to that moment, had cared less. She talked of golf, inquiring, in an offhand sort of way, what my "handicap" was; evidently taking it for granted that, in common with the rest of the world, I had a "handicap." I do not know what I answered; because, as it happened, not only was I without that plainly desirable appurtenance, but I did not even know what she meant. Hitherto golf had not come into my life at all. But fortunately, she chattered on at such a rate that she was able to pay no attention to what I said; so that it did not matter what I answered. It appeared that she had recently been playing a "tie" or a "match" or a "game" or a "round" or a "skittle," or something--I do not know which it was, but I am almost certain it was one or the other--with a Mrs Chuckit--I am sure of the name, because it was such an odd one--in which, it seemed, she had met with an unparalleled series of disasters. From what I could gather she had been "stymied" and "bunkered" and "up" and "down" and "holed" and "foozled" and "skied" and "approached" and "driven," and all sorts of dreadful things. At least, I believe they were dreadful things; and, indeed, from the emphatic way in which she spoke of them, I am convinced they were. One thing of which she told me I am sure must have been painful. She said that she got into a hedge--a "beast of a hedge" she called it; though how, or why, she got into it she did not explain; and that no sooner did she get out of it--"which took some doing"--so it shows it must have been painful--than back she went--"bang into the middle" of it again--which seemed such a singular thing for anyone to do that, had she not been speaking with such earnestness, and such vigour, I should almost have suspected her of a desire to take advantage of my innocence. Then, she admitted, she had lost her temper--which was not to be wondered at. If anyone had thrown me, or "got" me into a hedge, anyhow, I should have lost mine right straight off. The moral of it seemed to be that "the last hole cost her seventeen," though seventeen what--whether pounds or shillings--she did not mention; nor what manner of hole it could have been that she should have been so set on getting it at apparently any price. It was all double Dutch to me. But she rattled on at such a rate that I hoped to be able to conceal my ignorance; for I felt that if she discovered it, I should drop in her estimation like the mercury in the thermometer which is transferred from hot water into cold.

Suddenly, however, she began to ask me questions which sent cold shivers up and down my back. What cleeks had I got? whose "mashie" did I use? did I care for a "heelless" cleek?

I fumbled with the inquiries somehow, until she put one which I had to answer.

"Do you do much with a brassey spoon?"

She looked at me with her grey eyes which made me feel as if I was in the witness-box and she was cross-examiner. I did not do much with a "brassey spoon." Indeed, I did nothing. I had no idea what anyone could do. In fact, until that second I had not been aware that spoons were ever made of brass. And, anyhow, what part spoons of any kind played in the game of golf I had not the dimmest notion. But I was not going to give myself away at a single bound; I was not quite so simple as that. So I thought for a moment; then I answered--

"I suppose that I do about as much as other people."

As a non-committal sort of answer I thought it rather neat; but I was not so clear in my own mind as I should have liked to have been as to what was the impression which it made upon Margaret. She looked at me in a way which made me wonder if she suspected.

Luckily, before she was able to corner me again, we came to the house. In the hall a lady met us whose likeness to Philip was so great that it affected me with something like a shock; she was his replica in petticoats. In his clothes she might easily have passed as his elder brother. It was Mrs Sanford. She took both my hands in hers--standing in front of her relatively I was a mere mite--and looked me up and down.

"There isn't much of you, and you're ridiculously young."

"The first fault I am afraid is incurable. But the second I can grow out of. Many people do."

She laughed, and took me in her arms, literally lifted me off my feet--and kissed me. It was humiliating, but I did not seem to mind it from her. I had a sort of feeling she was nice. As I looked at her I understood how it was that she had two such athletic daughters. Philip had never struck me as being particularly athletic, though he was so big and broad. But as I talked to his mother I began to realise with a sinking heart how little I knew of him after all.

I cannot say that when I got into my bedroom I felt very ecstatic. Without an unusual degree of exertion I could have cried; but, thank goodness, I had sense enough not to do that.

When I went down to tea I found that Bertha and Miss Reeves had arrived--and the luggage, and the creatures. The Sanfords had creatures of their own; dogs and birds galore. Among the latter was one which I afterwards learnt was a jay. It made the most ridiculous noises, so that I felt that Lord Chesterfield was justified in fixing it with his stony gaze; and in observing, with serious and ceaseless reiteration--

"Don't be a fool!"

The conversation immediately got into channels which I would much rather it had kept out of. Bertha began it.

"Molly, you've just come in time. There's going to be a sing-song on the island to-night, and as I'm getting up the programme I hope you'll turn out to be a gem of the first water. What'll you do?" I did not know what a "sing-song" was. Bertha explained. "A sing-song? Oh, a kind of a sort of a concert--informal, free-and-easy, don't you know. All the river people turn up on the island--they bring their own illuminations--then some of us do things to amuse them. Will you give us a banjo solo?"

"I'm afraid I don't play the banjo."

"Not play the banjo? I thought everyone could make a row on the banjo. Can't you play it enough to accompany your own singing?"

"I'm afraid I don't sing."

"Don't sing? Then what do you do?"

"I bar recitations"; this was Miss Reeves.

"I don't care what you bar," retorted Bertha. "I'm going to recite: at least, I'm going to do a sort of a sketch with George Willis."

"I don't call that reciting."

"It wouldn't make any difference if you did."

I was rapidly beginning to learn that these people had a candid way of addressing each other which, to a stranger, was a little alarming.

"The question is, Molly, what shall I put you down for? Will you give us a dance?"

"A dance? I don't know what you mean."

"A cake-walk, or a skirt-twirl, or a few steps--anything."

"Do you mean, will I dance, all by myself, in front of a lot of strangers?"

"Yes, why not? Everybody does if they can."

"I cannot, thank you."

"Then what can you do?"

"I have no parlour tricks."

"No--what?"

"I have no parlour tricks."

I ought to have been warned by the tone in which Bertha put her inquiry; but I did not notice it until it was too late. Directly I had repeated my assertion I realised that I had said something which it would perhaps have been better left unsaid. They all exchanged glances in that exasperating way which some people have when they wish to telegraph to each other something which is not precisely flattering to you. Miss Reeves laughed outright; Bertha drummed with her fingers on her knee; Margaret observed me with her keen grey eyes; while Mrs Sanford spoke.

"Isn't that one of those things, Molly, which one would rather have expressed differently? Because, hereabouts, we rather pride ourselves on our capacity for what you call 'parlour tricks'; and were not even aware that they were 'parlour tricks' in the opprobrious sense which you seem to suggest. I have always myself tried to acquire a smattering of as many of what, I fancied, were the minor accomplishments, as I could; and I have always endeavoured, sometimes at the cost of a good deal of money, to induce my girls to acquire them too. I have never felt that a woman was any the worse for being able to do things for the amusement--if not for the edification--of her friends."

I had not been so snubbed since I had been long-frocked, and to think that it should have been by Philip's mother! I fancy that I blushed in a perfectly preposterous manner, and I know that I went hot and cold all over, and I tried to wriggle out of the mess into which I had got myself.

"I only wish I could do things, but I can't. I never have been among clever people, and I'm so dreadfully stupid. Hasn't Philip told you?"

"Philip has told us nothing, except--you know what. But Philip himself is a past-master of all sorts of parlour tricks. Don't you know so much of him as that?"

Of course I did. I resented the suggestion that I did not. I was commencing to get almost cross with Philip's mother. I was perfectly aware that there was nothing which Philip could not do, and do well, better than anyone else. But it had not occurred to me that therefore his relations, and even his acquaintances, were all-round experts also. And I was not by any means sure that I appreciated the fact now--if it was a fact. It was not pleasant to feel that in what were here plainly regarded as essentials, I should show to such hideous disadvantage. I should practically be out of everything, and no girl likes to be that, especially when her lover's about. Before long Philip would be comparing me to everybody else, and thinking nothing of me at all.

It is possible that my doleful visage--I am convinced that it had become doleful--moved Margaret to sympathy. Anyhow she all at once jumped up and, I have no doubt with the best will in the world by way of making things easier for me promptly proceeded to make them worse.

"Come along, Molly, let's have some tennis. Run upstairs and put your shoes on."

"My shoes? What shoes?"

"Why, your tennis shoes."

"My tennis shoes? I--I'm afraid I haven't brought any tennis shoes."

"Not brought any tennis shoes? But, of course, you do play tennis?"

The question was put in such a way as to infer that if I did not, then I must be a sorry specimen of humanity indeed. But, as it happened, I did play tennis, at least, after a fashion. We had what was called a tennis lawn at home, the condition of which may be deduced from the fact that I had never imagined that it would be inadvisable to play on it in hobnailed boots if anyone so desired.

"Of course I play; but--I haven't brought any particular shoes. Won't these do?"

I protruded one of those which I had on. Margaret could not have seemed more startled if I had shown her a bare foot.

"Those! why, they've got heels."

Miss Reeves went a good deal further.

"And such heels! My dear girl"--fancy her calling me her "dear girl," such impertinence!--"sane people don't wear those royal roads to deformity nowadays--they wear shoes like these."

She displayed a pair of huge, square-toed, shapeless, heelless, thick-soled monstrosities, into which nothing would ever have induced me to put my feet. I said so plainly.

"Then I'm glad that I am not sane. Sooner than wear things like that, I'd go about in my stockings. I don't believe that mine are royal, or any other, roads to deformity, they fit me beautifully; but, at anyrate, yours are deformities ready-made."

I did not intend to allow myself to be snubbed by Miss Reeves without a struggle. She was no relative of Philip's. But she might just as well have been; because, with one accord, they all proceeded to take her part.

"My dear Molly," said Margaret, speaking as if hers were the last words which could be said, "you are wrong. In shoes like yours you're a prisoner. You mayn't be conscious of it; and you won't be till you try others. Then you'll find out, and you'll be sorry that you didn't find out before. I want to be mistress of my feet; I don't want to be their servant. I wear shoes like Pat, and nothing would induce me to wear any other kind--I know better."

"And I," echoed her mother and sister.

There they were, all three displaying--with actual gusto!--shoes which were facsimiles of those worn by Miss Reeves. They were probably the productions of the same expert in ugliness.

"You won't be able to do anything really comfortably till you wear them too; then you'll tell yourself what a goose you were not to have gone in for them ages ago. But you'll find Philip'll soon win you into the ways of wisdom."

Philip would? I should like to see Philip even dare to try. If I could not wear--without argument--shoes to please myself, then--

I imagine that Margaret perceived, from the expression of my countenance, that she had gone a little too far; because she said, in quite a different tone of voice,--

"Never mind about shoes! play in those you have on, and I'll tell Jackson to give the lawn an extra roll in the morning."

If I had been wise I should have taken the reference to Jackson as a hint, and slipped out of playing. But my back was a wee bit up, and I was a little off my balance, so I played. Of course I made a frightful spectacle of myself. It did make me so wild.

Bertha and Margaret said they would play Miss Reeves and me, which I did not like, to begin with. Under the circumstances, I felt that one of them might have offered to take me as a partner. They might have seen that I was commencing to regard Miss Reeves as if she were covered with prickles. Besides which, considering what I imagined I had come there for, and the position which I was shortly to occupy in the family, it did seem to me that they ought not to have paired me with a stranger. But as they evidently preferred to play together, they plainly did not think it worth their while to study my tastes for a moment. So I was as sugary to Miss Reeves as I could be.

"I am afraid you have a very bad partner," I observed.

"I don't mind," she was kind enough to reply. "I expect you're one of those dark horses who're better than they choose to make out."

I tried to be, but I failed ignominiously. I do declare that I am not always so bad as I was then. But, as I have said, I was a little off my balance; and all I could do was make an idiot of myself. Bertha served first; my partner suggested I should take her service. I took it, or rather, I didn't take it. She sent the balls so fast that I could scarcely see them; and then there was such a twist on them, or whatever you call the thing, that I could not have hit them anyhow. I did not hit them, not one.

"What horrid balls," I murmured, when Bertha had made an end.

"You seem to find them so."

My partner spoke with such excessive dryness that I could have hit her with my racket. When it came to her turn to serve she asked me a question.

"Won't you stand up to the net and kill their returns?"

No, I would not stand up to the net and kill their returns. I did not know what she meant, but I knew that I would not do it. And I did not. She herself played as if she had been doing nothing else all her life but play lawn-tennis. She was all over the place at once. I was only in her way, and she treated me as if I was only in her way. I had to dodge when I saw her coming, or she would have sent me flying--more than once she nearly did. It was a painful fiasco, so far as I was concerned; I have a dim suspicion that we scored nothing. When the game was finished she looked me up and down.

"Bit off your game, aren't you?"

"I'm afraid I am," I muttered.

I was too cast down to do anything else but mutter. There was a look in her eyes which, unless I was mistaken, meant temper. And she was such a very stalwart person that I had a horrible feeling that, unless I was very careful, she might make nothing of shaking me.

"Perhaps you're stronger in singles; I should like to play you a single; will you?"

"Thank you, some--some other time."

"Shall we say to-morrow?"

We did not say to-morrow. I would not have said to-morrow for a good deal. Margaret came to my rescue.

"You play Bertha. Molly and I'll look on."

We looked on, while they performed prodigies. I had never before seen such playing. The idea of my associating myself with them was preposterous. As we watched, Margaret was not so loquacious as I should have desired. In her silence I seemed to read disapprobation of the exhibition of incompetence which I had given. Moreover, when she did speak, her remarks took the form of criticisms of the play, approving this stroke, condemning that, with a degree of severity which made me wince. It was impossible to sit beside her for many seconds without realising that she regarded lawn-tennis with a seriousness of which--in that connection--I had never dreamed. Obviously, with her, it was one of the serious things of life.

Suddenly she hit upon a theme which was not much more palatable to me than lawn-tennis had been, in such company.

"Let's play ping-pong, you and me?"

"Ping-pong?" My heart sank afresh. It seemed in that house, that games were in the air. "Wouldn't you rather sit here and watch them playing tennis. I like to watch them."

I would rather have watched anyone play anything than play myself. But Margaret was of a different mind.

"Oh no, what's the fun of it? One gets rusty. Let's do something. Of course ping-pong's not a game one can take really in earnest; but there's a tournament in the schoolroom on Wednesday, and I ought to keep my hand in. Come along and let's have a knock up."

We went along. She did not give me a chance to refuse to go along. She led the way.

"Of course you do play?"

"Well--I have played. But I'm quite sure that I don't play in your sense."

"Oh, everyone plays ping-pong--the merest children even. I maintain that it's nothing but a children's game."

It might be. In that case, she would soon discover that I was past the age of childhood.

"Have you brought your bat?" I had not. "It doesn't matter. We've got about thirty different kinds. You're sure to find your sort among them."

A ping-pong board was set up in the billiard-room. On a table at one side were enough bats to stock a shop. I took the one she recommended, and we began.

Ping-pong is a loathsome game. I have always said it, and always shall. At home we played it on the dining-room table. The boys made sport of me. They used to declare in derision, that I played "pat-ball." I should have liked some of them to have played with Margaret. She would have played with them, or I err. I thought the serves had come in with disgusting swiftness at lawn-tennis--they were nothing compared to her serves at ping-pong. That wretched little celluloid ball whizzed over the net like lightning, and then, as I struck at it blindly, expecting it to come straight towards me, like a Christian thing, it flew off at an angle, to the right or left, and my bat encountered nothing but the air. On the other hand, when I served she smashed my ball back with such force that it leaped right out of my reach, or any one's, and sometimes clean over the billiard-table. I had soon had enough of it.

"Hadn't we better stop?" I inquired, when, for the second time in succession, she had smashed my service nearly up to the ceiling. "It can't be very amusing for you to play with me."

A similar reflection seemed to occur to her. Resting her bat on the edge of the board, she regarded me in contemplative fashion.

"What is your favourite game?" she asked.

For some occult reason the question made me blush, so far, that is, as my state of heat permitted.

"I'm not good at any, so I suppose I haven't a favourite game. Indeed, I don't think I'm fond of games."

"Not fond of games?" Her tone was almost melancholy, as if my admission grieved her. "That is unfortunate. We're such a gamey crowd--we are all so keen on games."

Her bearing so hinted that I had been the occasion to her of actual pain that it almost moved me to tears.

When I got up into my room to dress for dinner I was a mixture of feelings. It would not have needed much to have made me sneak down the stairs, and out of the house, and back to the station, if I had been sure of getting safely away. I could not say exactly what I had expected, but I certainly had not expected this. Philip had always made such a fuss of me, that, I fear, I had taken it for granted that, under the circumstances, his people would make a fuss of me too. Instead of which they had received me with a take-it-for-granted air, as if they had known me for years and years; and then had promptly proceeded to make me feel so unutterably small, that I was almost inclined to wish that I had never been born.

I hated to be made small. I hated games. I hated--during those moments, in which I was tearing off my frock, I nearly felt as if I hated everything. But just in time, it was borne in to me how wicked I was. It was not their fault if I was a little donkey; it was my own. They were not to blame if I had allowed my education to be neglected, and had not properly appreciated the paramount importance of tennis, and ping-pong, and golf, and all the other, to my mind, somewhat exasperating exercises which came under the generic heading of "games." As I proceeded with my toilette, and surveyed the result in the mirror, my spirit became calmer. At least they none of them looked better than I did. I might not be such an expert, but I certainly was not uglier than they were. And that was something. Besides, I was young, and strong, and healthy, and active. If I set myself to do it, it was quite within the range of possibility that I might become a match for them even at tennis and ping-pong. I did not believe that I was such a duffer as I had seemed.

No one could have been nicer than they were when I went down into the drawing-room; Miss Reeves actually was so nice that she took my breath away. They stared as I entered; then broke into a chorus.

"Well," began Bertha, with that outspokenness which seemed a family characteristic, "one thing's sure and certain--you'll be the beauty of the family. We shall have to show you as an illustration of what we can achieve in that direction. You look a perfect picture."

"A dream of loveliness!" cried Miss Reeves. "Now, if I were a man, you're just the sort of girl I'd like to marry. Even as a mere girl I'd like to kiss you."

She put her hands lightly on my bare shoulders, and she did kiss me--on both cheeks, and on the lips--there and then. It was most bewildering. I had not looked for that sort of thing from her. But Mrs Sanford's words warmed the very cockles of my heart.

"If you are as delightful as you look, my dear, that boy of mine ought to be a very happy fellow."

No woman had ever spoken to me like that before. It filled me with a delightful glow--made me even bold. I went close up to her, and I whispered--

"I should like to make him happy."

Then she drew me to her, and she kissed me--laughing as she did so. It was really a most peculiar position for a person to be in. But I forgave them for making such an object of me at tennis.

After dinner Mrs Sanford said,--

"Bertha, Margaret, and I will go over to the island in the dinghy,--we, being on this occasion, the chief exponents of parlour tricks, and responsible for all the other performers of the same--and then, Pat, you and Molly might follow in the punt."

At Mrs Sanford's mischievous allusion to "parlour tricks" they all looked at me, and laughed; but, by now, I was beginning to get used to their ways: I laughed too. A little while before I should have objected to being again paired off with Miss Reeves, but my sentiments were also commencing to change towards her. Mrs Sanford went on--

"We shall have to see that all things are ready and in order; so that you will have fifteen or twenty minutes before you need appear."

We saw them off--the garden ran right down to the water's edge. Then Miss Reeves proposed that, since there was no need to hurry, we should get into the punt, and dawdle about upon the river till it was time to join them. The idea commended itself to me; although I was regarding the punt--which was moored alongside--with some misgivings. Incredible though it may sound, I had never seen such an article before.

But then I had never before been within miles and miles of the Thames,--except over London Bridge, and that kind of thing. I had never been in a boat in my life, whether large or small, on sea or river. Such was my ignorance, that I had not been aware that women ever rowed--especially in little weeny boats all alone by themselves. The workmanlike manner in which Bertha and Margaret had rowed off with their mother had filled me with amazement,--they had gone off with nothing on their heads, or shoulders, or even their hands. They had a heap of wraps in the bottom of the boat; but it had not seemed to occur to them that it was necessary to put them on. True, it was a lovely evening and delightfully warm, but there were lots of other boats about; and it did seem odd that three ladies should start off in a boat all alone by themselves in exactly the same costume in which they had just been sitting at dinner.

"Hadn't I better put something on?" I inquired of Miss Reeves, who showed symptoms of a desire to hurry me into the punt before I was ready.

"Why," she rejoined. "It'll be hot all through the night. You don't feel chilly?"

"No; I don't feel chilly--but--"

I looked about me at the strangers in the other boats in a way which she was quick to understand. She was shrewd enough.

"My dear Miss Boyes--" she paused. "I mean my dear Molly--I must call you Molly--I really must--up here, one regards the Thames as one's own private river. It's the mode to do--and to dress--exactly as one pleases. In summer, on the upper reaches of the Thames, one is in Liberty Hall. Step into that punt--if it pleases you, just as you are; or if it pleases you, smother yourself in wraps--only do step in. Are you going to pole, or am I?"

"To pole?"

She eyed me quizzically.

"Don't tell me that you don't know what to pole means?"

"But I don't. How should I, when I never saw a punt before this second."

"Dear me, how your rudiments have been neglected. Poling, you uninstructed child, with the stream, and the right companion, on a summer evening, is the poetry of life. Jump inside that boat, and I'll give you an illustration of the verb--to pole."

She gave me one; a charming illustration too. Certainly, lying on the bottom of that punt, amid a pile of cushions while it moved smoothly over those glittering waters, under that cloudless sky, was delicious. And the ease with which she sent us along, just dipping the long pole into the stream, while the gleaming drops of water fell off the shining shaft.

"Well," she asked, "how do you like my illustration?"

"It's lovely! I could go on like this for ever,--just looking at you. It shows off your figure splendidly." She laughed. "And it doesn't seem to be so difficult either."

"What doesn't seem difficult?--poling? It isn't. You only have to put it in, and take it out again. Nothing could be simpler."

Of course I knew that she was chaffing me; and that it was not quite so simple as that. But, all the same, I leaned to the opinion that it was not so very hard. And I resolved that, when Philip came, and he was there to teach me, and to take a genuine interest in my education, that I would try my hand. I suspected that I might look rather decent, poling him along.

It was very jolly on the island. There were crowds of people, some of them gorgeous, some in simple skirts and blouses, but scarcely any of them wore hats,--the men looked nicer than I had ever seen men look before. I came to the conclusion that the river costume did suit men. The "parlour tricks" were excellent; I became more and more ashamed of myself for having spoken of them as parlour tricks. Bertha and Margaret and Mrs Sanford were splendid. I believe that the people would have liked them to have kept on doing things all night long--and no wonder. If I had only been a hundredth part as clever, I should have been as proud as a peacock. Everything would have gone off perfectly, and I should have had one of the pleasantest evenings of my life, if it had not been for my stupidity.

When all was over I found myself in the punt with Margaret. She was kneeling at one end, arranging her music and things. Although it was pretty late there was a full moon in an unclouded sky, so that it was almost as light as day. All at once I discovered that we had got untied or something, and were drifting farther and farther from the land.

"We're going," I exclaimed.

"That's all right," said Margaret. "Pole her clear."

Evidently she, engrossed in affairs of her own, took it for granted that I was no novice; in that part of the world novices seemed to be things unknown. There were lots of boats about us; people were making laughing remarks about our being in the way; the pole was lying in the punt: Miss Reeves had handled it as if it were a feather. Here was an earlier opportunity to try my hand than I had anticipated; but--surely!--until Margaret was disengaged, I could act on her instructions and "pole clear." So I picked up the pole.

Two things struck me instantly; one, that it was much longer than it had seemed; and the other, that it was a very great deal heavier. But I had been so hasty that, before I realised these facts--though I realised them rapidly enough--the end of it was in the water. Down it went with a jerk to the bottom. Had I not hung on to it with sudden desperation it would all of it have gone. I wished it had! For while I clung to it I all at once perceived that, in some mysterious way, the boat was running away from underneath me. It was the most extraordinary sensation I had ever experienced, and so startling! and it all took place with such paralysing swiftness. Before I understood what was really happening--before I had time to scream or anything, I found that I was actually pushing the punt away with my own feet, that I was standing on the edge of it, and splash! I was in the river.

There was no water to speak of. It was quite shallow; only a foot or two deep. I was out again almost as soon as I was in. But I was soaked to the skin. And the worst of it was, that I knew that not a creature there sympathised with me truly. All round me people were laughing outright--at me--as if it were quite a joke. I could not see where the joke came in. Although Mrs Sanford and the girls and Miss Reeves pretended to sympathise with me, I felt persuaded that even they were laughing at me in their heart of hearts. More than once I caught them in a grin.

I did feel so wild with myself when I got between the sheets! All the same, I slept like a top. I seemed to have only been asleep a minute or two when I was disturbed by a knocking at my bedroom door.

"Who's there?" I cried.

"Come for a dip?" returned Margaret's voice.

"A dip?" I shuddered; she had roused me from the loveliest dream. "Where?"

"Why, in the river, child! It's a perfect morning for a swim!"

"In the river?--for a swim?--But I can't swim."

"I'm coming in," she cried. And in she came, rushing across the floor, putting her strong arms underneath my shoulders, raising me from the pillow. "I don't believe you can do anything--you little goose! But you're a darling all the same!"

She kissed me three or four times, then dropped me; scurried back across the floor, and out of the room.

I sighed, and, I believe, I turned over and went to sleep again.

When I got down to breakfast I found that they had all been about for hours. There was a letter from Philip lying on my plate. He wrote to say that he was coming down by the first train.

"You might go and meet him," suggested Mrs Sanford. "Can you drive?"

They all grinned; but I did not mind, not a tiny bit.

"Can I drive?" I retorted scornfully. "Why, I've driven since I was a little thing."

"And pray, how long ago is that? Anyhow, if you can drive you might go to meet him by yourself."

I did--in the pony phaeton; it was lovely. When Philip came out of the station my heart jumped into my mouth; especially when he took his hat off, and kissed me in front of all the people. It was so unexpected.

As I drove him back I told him what an absolute duffer I was, what an utter failure, what an all-round nincompoop. He declared that he did not believe a word of it; which seems, from one point of view, to have been a trifle rude. And he said that, as for my not being able to do things, he would show me how to do them all, and he guaranteed--but I knew there was a twinkle in his eye--that soon I would do them better than anyone else.

And I should not be surprised if he does teach me how to do some things. He has taught me such a deal already.

So, as I observed at the outset, although I am not quite, I am almost perfectly happy. And, after all, that is something. Particularly as I daresay I shall be quite happy before very long.