oh, we know how she adores her Euty----"

"_What?_" It was a new voice that spoke. "What?" repeated General
Boldero, stepping forward into their midst. "Do my ears deceive me?
Leonore," he paused and gasped. "Wretched child!"--but pomposity
prevailed. "May I inquire in all politeness what is the meaning of that
most extraordinary, most preposterous accusation? You are silent. You
may well be. Your most disgraceful language--again I demand what is the
meaning of it?"

He seized her arm, as though she were not already nailed to the spot.
"The meaning, girl--the meaning?"

"The--the meaning?"

"I repeat, the meaning. I am coming along the passage, and I hear you
shouting at the pitch of your voice----"

"At the pitch of my voice?" echoed Leo, mechanically. Her eye was not
upon her father, and she only half heard his thunderous charge,--it was
something else which petrified her senses and made her head swim.

Sue? What had come to Sue?

White as death Sue had fallen into a chair, every feature distorted by
such a mute agony of terror that--oh, there was no mistaking it, no
concealing it, and yet,--Leo looked round.

She was between her unfortunate sister and the rest of the party, Sue
having cowered down behind her where she stood,--while Maud and Sybil,
to avoid being implicated, had precipitately retreated to a
window-recess, the former with a shrug of her shoulders, the latter with
the intention of slipping off as soon as might be.

But Sue? Was it possible?--yet nothing else was possible. Nothing else
could account for a collapse so sudden and complete. Oh, poor Sue--poor,
prim, stately Sue. At another moment,--but Leo must not stop to think
what she would have done at another moment; her one aim now must be to
shield the defenceless creature, exposed through her. So far, the parent
who made poor Sue's life a burden, and yet whom she believed in, loved,
and served to the best of her humble power, had concentrated his
attention on herself as chief delinquent, but at any moment his
infuriated eyes might turn to that shrinking, trembling form, and then?

With the air of a combatant delighted to welcome an unexpected ally, "I
_am_ so glad you came in, father," said she.

Glad? The general stepped back as though she had hit him. Glad?

"They are all so down upon me about that stupid old parson of ours,"
continued Leonore, glibly. "They won't listen to anything I say against
him, but I know _you_ will believe me