ped not," replied Jan. "It took me five minutes to stick
them in, and there's one of the pins running into my wrist now. It's a
new shirt of mine come home, and they have forgotten the buttons. Miss
Deb caught sight of it, when I went in to tell her I was coming here,
and ran after me to the gate with a needle and thread, wanting to sew
them on."

"Could you not have fastened it better than that, Jan?" asked Decima,
smiling as she looked at the shirt.

"I don't see how," replied Jan. "Pins were the readiest to hand."

Sibylla had been keeping them waiting dinner. She came in now, radiant
in smiles and in her gold combs. None, to look at her, would suppose she
had that day lost a home. A servant appeared and announced dinner.

Lionel went up to Lady Verner. Whenever he dined there, unless there
were other guests besides himself, he had been in the habit of taking
her in to dinner. Lady Verner drew back.

"No, Lionel. I consider that you and I are both at home now. Take Miss
Tempest."

He could only obey. He held out his arm to Lucy, and they went forward.

"Am I to take anybody?" inquired Jan.

That was just like Jan! Lady Verner pointed to Sibylla, and Jan marched
off with her. Lady Verner and Decima followed.

"Not there, not there, Lucy," said Lady Verner, for Lucy was taking the
place she was accustomed to, by Lady Verner. "Lionel, you will take the
foot of the table now, and Lucy will sit by you."

Lady Verner was rather a stickler for etiquette, and at last they fell
into their appointed places. Herself and Lionel opposite each other,
Lucy and Decima on one side the table, Jan and Sibylla on the other.

"If I am to have you under my wing as a rule, Miss Lucy, take care that
you behave yourself," nodded Lionel.

Lucy laughed, and the dinner proceeded. But there was very probably an
undercurrent of consciousness in the heart of both--at any rate, there
was in his--that it might have been more expedient, all things
considered, that Lucy Tempest's place at dinner had not been fixed by
the side of Lionel Verner.

Dinner was half over when Sibylla suddenly laid down her knife and fork,
and burst into tears. They looked at her in consternation. Lionel rose.

"That horrid John Massingbird!" escaped her lips. "I always disliked
him."

"Goodness!" uttered Jan, "I thought you were taken ill, Sibylla. What's
the good of thinking about it?"

"According to you, there's no good in thinking of anything," tartly