l, if ever
I lives to drink some of the old port wine in the old Hall at
Christmastide!" Their healths would on that occasion be drunk, it was
implied. He threw up his eyes at the windows, humped his body and drove
away.

"Then Mr. Whitford has not come back?" said Clara to Crossjay.

"No, Miss Middleton. Sir Willoughby has, and he's upstairs in his room
dressing."

"Have you seen Barclay?"

"She has just gone into the laboratory. I told her Sir Willoughby
wasn't there."

"Tell me, Crossjay, had she a letter?"

"She had something."

"Run: say I am here; I want the letter, it is mine."

Crossjay sprang away and plunged into the arms of Sir Willoughby.

"One has to catch the fellow like a football," exclaimed the injured
gentleman, doubled across the boy and holding him fast, that he might
have an object to trifle with, to give himself countenance: he needed
it. "Clara, you have not been exposed to the weather?"

"Hardly at all."

"I rejoice. You found shelter?"

"Yes."

"In one of the cottages?"

"Not in a cottage; but I was perfectly sheltered. Colonel De Craye
passed a fly before he met me . . ."

"Flitch again!" ejaculated the colonel.

"Yes, you have luck, you have luck," Willoughby addressed him, still
clutching Crossjay and treating his tugs to get loose as an invitation
to caresses. But the foil barely concealed his livid perturbation.

"Stay by me, sir," he said at last sharply to Crossjay, and Clara
touched the boy's shoulder in admonishment of him.

She turned to the colonel as they stepped into the hall: "I have not
thanked you, Colonel De Craye." She dropped her voice to its lowest: "A
letter in my handwriting in the laboratory."

Crossjay cried aloud with pain.

"I have you!" Willoughby rallied him with a laugh not unlike the squeak
of his victim.

"You squeeze awfully hard, sir."

"Why, you milksop!"

"Am I! But I want to get a book."

"Where is the book?"

"In the laboratory."

Colonel De Craye, sauntering by the laboratory door, sung out: "I'll
fetch you your book. What is it? EARLY NAVIGATORS? INFANT HYMNS? I
think my cigar-case is in here."

"Barclay speaks of a letter for me," Willoughby said to Clara, "marked
to be delivered to me at noon!"

"In case of my not being back earlier; it was written to avert
anxiety," she replied.

"You are very good."

"Oh, good! Call me anything but good. Here are the ladies. Dear
ladies!" Clara swam to meet them as they issued