r trunk and her brown suit-case.

"My hat, Selina!" said he to his wife, as soon as the girls had led
Miss Holland out of hearing, "that's the kind of governess for me! You
don't mind my telling her to call me Dick, do you? It slipped out when
she was squeezing my hand."

"I don't mind you're being undignified," replied Mrs Craigie in a
chilly voice, "but I do wish you wouldn't be vulgar."

As Mr Craigie's chief joys in life were entertaining his daughters and
getting a rise out of his wife, and as he also had a very genuine
admiration for a pretty face, he was in the seventh heaven of
happiness, and remained there for the next three days. Pipe in mouth,
he invaded the schoolroom constantly and unseasonably, and reduced his
daughters to a state of incoherent giggling by retailing to Miss
Holland various ingenious schemes for their corporal punishment, airing
humorous fragments of a language he called French, and questioning
their instructor on suppositious romantic episodes in her career. He
thought Miss Holland hardly laughed as much as she ought; still, she
was a fine girl.

At table he kept his wife continually scandalised by his jocularities;
such as hoarsely whispering, "I've lost my half of the sixpence, Miss
Holland," or repeating, with a thoughtful air, "Under the apple-tree
when the moon rises--I must try and not forget the hour!" Miss Holland
was even less responsive to these sallies, but he enjoyed them
enormously himself, and still maintained she was a fine girl.

Mrs Craigie's opinion of her new acquisition was only freely expressed
afterwards, and then she declared that clever though Miss Holland
undoubtedly was, and superior though she seemed, she had always
suspected that something was a little wrong somewhere. She and Mr
Craigie had used considerable influence and persuasion to obtain a
passport for her, and why should they have been called upon to do this
(by a lady whom Mrs Armitage admitted she had only met twice), simply
to give a change of air to a healthy-looking girl? There was something
behind _that_. Besides, Miss Holland was just a trifle too
good-looking. That type always had a history.

"My wife was plain Mrs Craigie before the thing happened," observed her
husband with a twinkle, "but, dash it, she's been Mrs Solomon ever
since!"

It was on the fourth morning of Miss Holland's visit that the telegram
came for her. Mr Craigie himself brought it into the schoolroom and
deli