aiting?" asks he, eagerly, foolishly, glad because
of her last words, that seem to imply so much and really mean so
little. Has she been anxious for his coming? Have the minutes appeared
tedious because of his absence? "I hurried all I knew," he says; "but
stewards will be stewards."

"I have been quite happy with Miss Scrope; you need not look so
penitent," says Clarissa. "And who am I, that I should compete with a
steward? We have been having quite a good time, and an excellent
argument. Come here, and tell your sister that you think Jim the
prettiest name in the world."

"Did any one throw a doubt on the subject? Lives there a soul so dead
to euphony as not to recognize the music in those three letters?--Jim!
Why, it is poetry itself," says Sir James, who is not so absent that
he cannot scent battle on the breeze. As he speaks, he smiles: and
when James Scrope smiles he is almost handsome.

"Some day you will regret encouraging that child in her folly,"
remarks Miss Scrope, severely. At which the child makes a saucy little
grimace unseen, and rises to her feet.

"What a solemn warning!" says Scrope, with a shrug. "I hope," turning
to Clarissa, "you have taken it to heart, and that it will keep you
out of imaginary mischief. It ought, you know. It would be a shabby
thing to bring down public censure on the head of one who has so nobly
espoused your cause."

"My conduct from this day forth shall be above suspicion," says
Clarissa. "Good-by, Miss Scrope," stooping to press her fresh warm
lips to the withered cross old cheek beneath her: "I am going to tread
old ground with--James."

She follows him across hall and corridor, through two modern rooms,
and past a _portiere_, into another and larger hall beyond. Here,
standing before a heavy oaken doer, he turns the handle of it, and, as
it swings back slowly and sleepily, they pass into another room, so
unexpectedly and so strangely different from any they have yet
entered, as almost to make one start.

It is a huge old-fashioned apartment, stone-floored and oak panelled,
that once, in olden days, must have been a refectory. Chairs carved in
oak, and built like bishops' thrones, line the walls, looking as
though no man for many a hundred years has drawn them from their
present position. Massive cabinets and cupboards, cunningly devised by
crafty hands in by-gone days, look out from dusky corners, the hideous
faces carved upon them wreathed in their eternal ghastly