ming fortune-hunting after a bit----"

"What?" thundered the general, aghast.

"They will, oh, yes, they will. Leo will look uncommonly pretty and
pathetic as the rich young widow, and I don't suppose she will be
inconsolable----"

"And you mean--God bless my soul!" But though General Boldero rolled his
eyes, and kept up his high tone of indignant amazement, the speaker did
not feel snubbed as she might have done.

"We shall have all the impecunious youths----"

"That we shan't." A relapse to fierceness.

Sybil laughed. "'Trying it on,' was all I was going to say, sir. Any one
who knows _you_ wouldn't back them for a brass farthing." There was a
touch of bitterness in the last words which called forth a "Pshaw!" from
the general's lips. He knew, as they all did, to what the sneer
referred, and Sue, as usual, made haste to avert an explosion.

"I don't think we need fear that Leo will be in any hurry to marry
again; she was very fond of poor Godfrey----"

"Then she must keep up appearances for his sake," struck in her father
eagerly. "Tell her it's for _his_ sake, mind; and see that she does it.
As for that nonsense of Sybil's----" and he enlarged till he had worn
out the subject.

When he left the room, the girls looked at each other. "He doesn't know
Leo," said Maud at last. She was always the last to speak, it was the
easiest way; Syb could rattle, and sometimes rattle did well enough with
a parent who as has been said could be managed when not openly
contradicted, but she preferred silence and apparent submission. She
could, however, emit a sentiment when alone with her sisters. "He won't
find it as easy as he thinks to get Leo to pretend. She was always a
truthful little thing."

"At the same time, it is her duty to obey our father's wishes," quoth
Miss Boldero gently. "And one cannot wonder that he should dislike to
have her unfortunate circumstances known."

"Meaning that she is as poor as a rat, Madam Grandiloquence. Ah, well,
_I_ don't mind. Didn't I say it would be fun to take in everybody?--and
as _I_ am not particularly truthful," laughed Sybil, "I'll play any part
the old gentleman chooses, with all the pleasure in life. Maud, if I
catch you tripping, I'll tread on your toes till you squeak. It is
understood that our poor dear bereaved one--eh, Sue? that's the style,
isn't it?--that she only comes to us because she needs the paternal
advice for her oceans of money, and the paternal arm to preven