pty; and Nan thought it strange she should have gone
downstairs without knocking at her door in passing. But when Nan also
went below she found that Madge had left the house before any one was
up. She could not understand it at all.

Mr. Tom came down.

'Oh,' said he, indifferently, 'she wants to be mighty clever and find
out those ferns for herself.'

'But I did not tell her where they were. I only said they were on the
road to ----' said Nan, naming the place: the writer has reasons of his
own for not being more explicit.

'All the cleverer if she can find out. The cheek of the young party is
pyramidal,' said Mr. Tom, as he rang for breakfast.

But at lunch, also, Madge had not turned up.

'It is very extraordinary,' said Lady Beresford, though she was too
languid to be deeply concerned.

'Oh no, it isn't, mother,' said Mr. Tom. 'It's all Nan's fault. Nan
has infected her. The Baby, you'll see, has taken to tramping about
the country with gipsies; and prowling about farmers' kitchens; and
catching leverets, and stuff. We lives on the simple fruits of the
earth, my dears; we eats of the root, and we drinks of the spring; but
that doesn't prevent us having a whacking appetite somewhere about
seven forty-five. Edith, my love, pass me the cayenne-pepper.'

'Boys shouldn't use cayenne-pepper,' said Nan.

'And babies should speak only when they're spoken to,' he observed.
'Mother, dear, I have arrived at the opinion that Madge has run away
with young Hanbury. I am certain of it. The young gentleman is fool
enough for anything----'

'You always were spiteful against Mr. Hanbury,' said Edith, 'because
his feet are smaller than yours.'

'My love,' retorted Mr. Tom, with imperturbable good-nature, 'his feet
may be small. It is in his stupidity that he is really great. Jack
Hanbury can only be described in the words of the American poet: he is
a commodious ass.'

Now this conjecture of Mr. Tom's about the cause of Madge's
disappearance was only a piece of gay facetiousness. It never did
really occur to him that any one--that any creature with a head capable
of being broken--would have the wild audacity to run away with one of
his sisters, while he, Mr. Tom Beresford, was to the fore. But that
afternoon post brought Nan a letter. She was amazed to see by the
handwriting that it was from Madge; she was still more alarmed when she
read these words, scrawled with a trembling hand, and in pencil:

'De