there. Near the
second-hand furniture shop."

"Your aunt's calling you," he said.

Mrs. Mills was out on the pavement, scooping at the air with her right
arm. Gertie instinctively obeyed the order; Mr. Trew kept pace with
her. The three entered the shop, and Mrs. Mills, with a touch of her
heel, closed the door, went inside the tobacco counter, and, across it,
spoke rapidly and vehemently, with the aid of emphatic gesture, for
five minutes by the clock. Mr. Trew, disregarding rules of etiquette,
sat down, whilst the two stood, and became greatly interested in the
mechanism of a cigar-cutter.

"Who told you all this, aunt?" asked the girl calmly, when Mrs. Mills
had finished.

"The lady customer who was here when you went out. Do you deny it? Of
course, if it isn't correct that you've been seen walking about with a
young swell, I've lost my temper for nothing."

"Girls will be girls," interposed Mr. Trew.

"Not in my house."

"It's all perfectly correct," announced Gertie.

Mrs. Mills looked around in a dazed way.

"Trew," she cried, "what's to be done?"

"You've had your say, old beauty," he remarked slowly. "Now let me and
her go into the parlour and have some music--music of a different kind."

The girl hesitated, and looked through the window. He touched her
shoulder. "I sh'd take it as a special favour."

He came out a few minutes later, and mentioned to Gertie's aunt that he
had a message to deliver. The music within ceased; the lid of the
pianoforte closed.

"Trew," she said.

"Queen of my heart."

"This isn't the only upset I've had. Who do you think it was in that
ambulance cart this afternoon? I hopped across to have a look."
Leaning over the counter, she whispered.

"That complicates matters, so far as she is concerned," he admitted.
"I hoped he'd vanished for good. We shall want all the diplomacy that
we've got stored away to deal with this."

CHAPTER II.

Mr. Trew could scarcely be suspected of exceeding his instructions; he
had, upon his return, given privately an account of the words used,
with frequent use of the phrases, "I says to him," and "He says to me."
But as evenings of the week went by, and other girls at Hilbert's, on
leaving at the hour of seven, were met by courageous youths near the
door, and by shyer lads at a more reticent spot (some of these took
ambush in doorways, affecting to read cricket results in the evening
paper), then Gertie Higham began