youth with
approval, entered the lists on her own account, and moving her chair a
trifle in his direction, said, in a confidential whisper,--

"Ma thinks we're not a very sociable couple, that's what it is."

A couple! He and Jemima a couple! Reginald was ready to faint, and
looked towards the open window as if he meditated a headlong escape that
way. As to any other way of escape, that was impossible, for he was
fairly cornered between the enemy and the wall, and unless he were to
cut his way through the one or the other, he must sit where he was.

"I hope you don't mind talking to me, Mr Reggie," continued the young
lady, when Reginald gave no symptom of having heard the last
observation. "We shall have to be friends, you know, now we are
neighbours. So you haven't got an album?"

This abrupt question drove poor Reginald still further into the corner.
What business was it of hers whether he had got an album or not? What
right had she to pester him with questions like that in his own house?
In fact, what right had she and her mother and her brother to come there
at all? Those were the thoughts that passed through his mind, and as
they did so indignation got the better of good manners and everything
else.

"Find out," he said.

He could have bitten his tongue off the moment he had spoken. For
Reginald was a gentleman, and the sound of these rude words in his own
voice startled him into a sense of shame and confusion tenfold worse
than any Miss Shuckleford had succeeded in producing.

"I beg your pardon," he gasped hurriedly. "I--I didn't mean to be
rude."

Now was the hour of Miss Jemima's triumph. She had the unhappy youth at
her mercy, and she took full advantage of her power. She forgave him,
and made him sit and listen to her and answer her questions for as long
as she chose; and if ever he showed signs of mutiny, the slightest hint,
such as "You'll be telling me to mind my own business again," was enough
to reduce him to instant subjection.

It was a bad quarter of an hour for Reginald, and the climax arrived
when presently Mrs Shuckleford looked towards them and said across the
room,--

"Now I wonder what you two young people are talking about in that snug
corner. Oh, never mind, if it's secrets! Nice it is, Mrs Cruden, to
see young people such good friends so soon. We must be going now,
children," she added. "We shall soon see our friends in our own 'ouse,
I 'ope."

A tender leave-t