XII MAYNADIER'S DREAM
The ladies came back from Rose Hill, just before supper, accompanied by Mr. Richard Maynadier and Mr. Bordley, who had stopped the night with him.
It was to the calm and peaceful Hedgely Hall of yesterday, that they returned, not the one of turmoil and stress, which they had left that morning. There were no traces of a struggle around the place; the grounds were as usual, the house as usual, the servants as usual. The only evidence that remained, were the scars on the rear door, and even those had been almost obliterated.
"It is all a fairy tale!" laughed Richard Maynadier, "this wonderful story of pirates, and ransom, and their chief being in manners a gentleman, bowing and scraping as though he were doing the minuet. I do not believe a word of it."
"No one asked you to believe it!" retorted Miss Marbury, with a toss of her head, "and, what is more, no one cares whether you do or whether you do not."
"You said that as if you meant it," said Maynadier with an amused smile, "and you said it very prettily, Judith,—but can you assume to answer for all your party?"
"You know perfectly well that 'no one' is equivalent to I," she answered, with another toss.
"Then I is equivalent to no one, and no one comprehends any one, and any one comprehends every one, and every one——"