cted
knitting (that, indeed, is more a pretence than a reality), and comes
out into the middle of the room. "For the sake of old days I shall see
you to the hall door," she says, brightly. "No, papa, do not ring: I
myself shall do the honors to Jim."

CHAPTER IV.

"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
All are but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame."--COLERIDGE.

All round the drawing-room windows at Scrope a wide balcony has been
built up, over which the creepers climb and trail. Stone steps leads
to it from the scented garden beneath, and up these runs Clarissa,
gayly, when Thursday morning had dawned, and deepened, and given place
to noon.

Within the drawing-room, before a low table, sits Miss Scrope, tatting
industriously. Tatting is Miss Scrope's forte. She never does anything
else. Multitudinous antimacassars, of all shapes, patterns, and
dimensions, grow beneath her untiring touch with the most alarming
rapidity. When finished, nobody knows what becomes of them, as they
instantly disappear from view and are never heard of afterwards. They
are as good as a ghost in Pullingham, and obstinately refuse to be
laid. It was charitably, if weakly, suggested at one time, by a member
of the stronger sex, that probably she sent them out in bales as
coverings for the benighted heathen; but when it was explained to this
misguided being that tatted antimacassars, as a rule, run to holes,
and can be seen through, even he desisted from further attempts to
solve the mystery.

Miss Peyton, throwing up one of the window-sashes, steps boldly into
the drawing-room and confronts this eminent tatter.

"Good-morning," she says, sweetly, advancing with smiling lips.

Miss Scrope, who has not heard her enter, turns slowly round: to say
she started would be a gross calumny. Miss Scrope never starts. She
merely raises her head with a sudden accession of dignity. Her
dignity, as a rule, is not fascinating, and might go by another name.

"Good-afternoon, Clarissa," she says, austerely. "I am sorry you
should have been forced to make an entrance like a burglar. Has the
hall door been removed? It used to stand in the front of the house."

"I think it is there still," Miss Peyton ventures, meekly.
"But"--prettily--"coming in through the window enabled me to see you
at least one moment sooner. Shall I close it again?"

"I beg you will not distress yourself about it