The result of this missive was that next morning the servants whispered that someone had been about the house on the preceding evening. Olive and Barnes sat talking for hours; and one day, unable to keep her counsel any longer, Olive told her sister what had happened. The letter that Barnes had taken across the field for her had, she declared, frightened Edward out of his senses; he had come rushing through the snow, and had spoken with her for full five minutes under her window. He loved her to distraction; and the next day she had received a long letter, full of references to his colonel, explaining how entirely against his will and desire he had been forced to accept the invitation to go and shoot at the Lawlers'. Alice listened quietly; as if she doubted whether Captain Hibbert would have died of consumption or heartache if Olive had acted otherwise, and then advised her sister quietly; and, convinced that her duty was to tell her mother everything, she waited for an occasion to speak. Mr. Barton was passing down the passage to his studio, Olive was racing upstairs to Barnes, Mrs. Barton had her hand on the drawing-room door; and she looked round surprised when she saw that her daughter was following her.

'I want to speak to you, mamma.'

'Come in, dear.'

Alice shut the door behind her.

'How bare and untidy the room looks at this season of the year; really you and Olive ought to go into the conservatory and see if you can't get some geraniums.'

'Yes, mamma, I will presently; but it was about Olive that I wanted to speak,' said Alice, in a strained and anxious way.

'What a bore that girl is with her serious face,' thought Mrs. Barton; but she laughed coaxingly, and said:

'And what has my grave-faced daughter to say—the learned keeper of the family's wisdom?'

Even more than Olive's—for they were less sincere—Mrs. Barton's trivialities jarred, and Alice's ideas had already begun to slip from her, and feeling keenly the inadequacy of her words, she said:

'Well, mamma, I wanted to ask you if Olive is going to marry Captain
Hibbert?'