of that confiding little face--sorrowful enough at
times certainly, and yet not sorrowful in the approved fashion, not
hopeless, not utterly cast down. "Just looking as if she needed some one
to be kind to her," ruminated he; "and when she laughed--" he paused and
wagged his head, "Lord, it was a good thing nobody but me heard Leo
laugh!"

CHAPTER VI.

A REVELATION.

"I think--" said Miss Boldero one day about a fortnight after this--"it
appears to me that Leonore might now be permitted to see the
rector?"--and she looked round to take the opinion of her sisters. Their
father was not present.

Perhaps the speaker had awaited such an opportunity, possibly what
appeared to be a very simple suggestion cost her an effort,--at any
rate, something of constraint in her air and accents arrested the
attention of the person most concerned, and Leo, wondering what so
formal a preamble portended, was so taken aback by the climax that she
did what she alone of the Bolderos ever did, she giggled.

"I can't help it, Sue; I really can't. Oh, dear--oh, dear!"

Permitted to see the rector? Had she not been almost daily seeing--and
dodging--the worthy Custance for weeks past? It had seemed to her that
she could not set foot outside the Abbey domain without catching a
glimpse of his long, thin figure somewhere or other on the road
outside,--and she had actually taken to spying out the land through a
chink of the park palings in order to let the figure, if there, vanish,
before venturing forth. Again she quavered apologetically, "Oh,
dear--oh, dear!"

But naturally no one joined in the mirth; Maud looked contemptuous,
Sybil indifferent--while a more than ordinary indignation suffused the
whole countenance of their half-sister. "Really, Leo!" Sue drew herself
up to her full height, and could enunciate no more.

"I mean no harm," protested Leo, stoutly. "You needn't look at me like
that, all of you,"--for now she too was vexed and bit her lip. "Why
mayn't I laugh when a thing is funny? And it is funny, Sue's saying
that."

"Indeed? We don't happen to see it so." Maud was seldom in sympathy with
jesting, and it must be owned that to a person with no sense of humour
Leo's childishness was at times incomprehensible. Leo, however, had
learned not to heed this.

"Well, I'll tell you," cried she, recovering. "Then you'll understand.
Poor dear Euty, with his long back and hanging head--what? Oh, Sue, he
_has_. He has the very l