Immediately after dinner, Blanche, who wished to perfect her own little plot, had commanded the attendance of that squire of dames, Everly, down at Rose Cottage, for half an hour, saying to him:
"Everyone will be at the Hall; cook Ellen is my friend; her plot being that I marry the Major; she is sure he talks to Mrs. Haughton for my sake (shows how perfect their tricks have been), and she (Ellen) is to be my maid and marry Simon; she's a good creature, Baronet, so she won't have her way; they never do down here; we gobble up all the bon-bons; so you be up to time; slip off after you lead Cis back from dinner; my plot wants trimming; and walls have ears here; there won't be a soul down there, or a body which would be worse."
"But I shall be missed," whined small Everly.
"Spoken like an English baronet, who don't see how small it is; you've got to come to help me fix my plot."
So after dinner, and in the corridor to the salons the wee white mouse excusing herself to her cavalier, flew softly to a cloak-room; it was only a minute, and the cloak enveloped la petite; when, with hood drawn well over the forehead, and the satin-dressed feet pushed into over-boots, she is off. Quickly she sped in and out among the trees, the wind blowing her cloak open, giving her the appearance in the shadow of a white-breasted bird on the wing, now flying, now resting in the shade, to listen for the footsteps of her expected companion when within a stone's throw of the cottage she stood.
"He's too utterly mean for anything; I see I shall have to bribe him every time," she thought; "but here he comes; I'll give him a fright," and throwing her cloak off, though chilled, she hid in the shadow and waited; but, no; it is not the expected, but Delrose flying, as we have seen him, to speak to his man.
"What's to pay now? I'll step in and hide, and not pad my ears either; he's expected too, I see, for the parlour is lit up."
In a moment Everly is forgotten in her loved game of detective. First, under the window where she was almost discovered by Delrose (as we are aware), next, the back door is entered, housemaid and small boy at the Hall, no one sees her enter, Ellen's loud breathing covering her footstep; in a few seconds she is in a pantry between dining-room and parlour. Here she heard every word that passed between them, master and man.
"The plot thickens, you bet; what a lovely time I am having, and what a thunder and lightning wretch the Major is; I don't suppose I can save those poor people, they have got ahead of me this time, in more ways than one," murmured wee Blanche, now leaving the cottage, only having given the others time to be out of sight. Half way to the Hall she meets the tardy little Everly, to whom Mrs. Forester had said, "What's up, Sir Tilton? you're as absent as a hound that's lost the scent; you are all cut up, your eyes are Miss Vernon's, your personality is the sofa's, away and find yourself, you're too tame for me, and send me Major Delrose."
"How awfully late you are," exclaimed Blanche, breathlessly, "here give me your arm."