itement
before the day is over, bless him!' Therefore, as you perceived, I
executed a new and original war-dance for his benefit, and sent you all
attitudinising about the room. That's the reason of this thusness, and
Diogenes is now, no doubt, full of agitation, believing that one so
young and fair has suddenly lost her wits, and imagining you all
occupied in binding me to the bedpost till help arrives!"

"I don't know how he feels, but I feel extremely ill!" grumbled Elsie,
her sympathy suddenly changed to resentment. "Sticking your face into
mine and laughing in that crazy fashion. Never do it again! My heart
is right up in my throat, and thumping like a steam-engine. I can't
work any more. I am going to recover my equanimity in the garden!"

Poor Diogenes! It was baffling to curiosity that all the actors should
have disappeared at the most exciting moment of the play; and the actors
themselves were fully aware of the fact, and with child-like enjoyment
determined to lengthen out the mystery. The porch-room was abandoned
for the afternoon, and such sequestered nooks in the garden as were
invisible from the Grange were chosen as resting-places, while Kitty
willingly consented to walk an extra half-mile on her way home, so as to
avoid going out by the front gate. Such a reversal of the usual comings
and goings would, it was hoped, give the final touch to Mr Vanburgh's
curiosity, and teach him a wholesome lesson on the folly of shutting
himself up and holding no communication with the world. When Agatha
suggested that the poor old dear might lie awake all night from
agitation, Nan cold-bloodedly hoped that he would, since he, on his
part, had been so cruel as to shut the doors of the Grange against his
neighbours.

She would have been much surprised if she had known how, and for whom,
those doors would first be opened!

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A VISIT OF CEREMONY.

At the beginning of May the first returning ray of brightness came into
Maud's life. A letter arrived from a friend of the family who had been
living abroad for her daughter's education, and had now reached Paris,
preparatory to returning to England in a month's time. It had been all
work and no play for the girl during the winter, her mother wrote, and
it had been long promised that the month in Paris should be entirely
given over to pleasure-seeking. Mabel had drawn out a programme so
lengthy and varied, that Mrs Nevins doubted whether s