"His punishment is sure," I answered complacently. "Hezekiah laughed when I mentioned his name. And you frown to-day at the thought of him."
"Aunt Octavia is coming," she remarked, feigning at once a careless air; but I was content that she let my remark pass unchallenged.
Miss Octavia's entrances were always effective. She appeared to-night charmingly gowned, but the bright twinkle in her eyes made it clear that no matter of dress could affect her humor or spirit. She greeted me, as she always did, as though our acquaintance were a matter of years rather than of days. I even imagined that she seemed pleased to find me back again. She asked no questions as to my day's occupations, but as we went in to dinner sallied forth cheerfully upon a description of her own activities.
"After I had baked my required quota of pies this morning, I sought recreation at the traps. The stable-boy who has been pulling the string for me having struck-work, it most providentially happened that I espied Lord Arrowood hanging on the edge of the maple tangle beyond the barn. I summoned him at once and put him to work managing the traps for me, finding him most efficient. He seemed extremely despondent, and after I had satisfied myself that two out of three was not an impossible record for one of my years, I brought him to the house and made tea for him. I left the room for a moment—I had taken him into the kitchen where, during the incumbency of the regular cook I hardly dare venture myself, and he made himself comfortable quite near the range. The pies on which I had been engaged all morning lay cooling near him. I had composed twenty-nine pies,—I am an excellent mathematician, and I could not have been mistaken in the count. What was my amazement to find, after his lordship's departure, that one pie was missing! The pan in which it was baked I discerned later, jammed into a barrel of excellent Minnesota flour. My absence from the room was the briefest; his lordship must indeed be a prestidigitateur to have made way with the pie so expeditiously."
"His lordship was doubtless hungry," I suggested. "Even nobility must eat. I passed Lord Arrowood in the highway early this morning, sitting upon a stone, with sundry items of hand-baggage reposing beside him. I have rarely seen any one so depressed."
"He belongs to an ancient house," remarked Miss Octavia. "He is descended from either Hengist or Horsa,—I forget which, but it does not greatly matter. The missing pie, I may add, was an effect in Westchester pippin; and as our American experiment in self-government bores him, I take it as significant that he chanced upon food that is the veritable sacrament of democracy."
"Now that the little matter of the servants has been adjusted, we must have a care lest the newly-arrived phalanx, which Providence so kindly sent to you to-day, is not stampeded by any further manifestations of the troubled spirit of the unfortunate Briton who was hanged on the site of this house."
"Mr. Ames," replied Miss Octavia impressively, "that matter is entirely in your hands."
"But if I could see the plans of this house, I should be better able to grapple with his ghostship."
I had thrown this out in the hope of eliciting some remark from her touching the Swedish maid's visit to Pepperton's office; but Miss Octavia met my gaze unflinchingly.