o and have
a word with them. Strathmere's amazingly fond of my mice and birds."

With that he walked away with the mice and the monkeys and the
squirrel clinging to him, and those of the birds that were not
perched upon his shoulders or his hands circling round his head with
a flurry of moving wings. Cleek followed. A word in private with
the Honourable Felix was accountable for his appearance in the
grounds with the boy, and Cleek was anxious to get a good look at
him without exciting any possible suspicion in Lady Essington's mind
regarding the "Lieutenant's" interest in him.

He was a bonny little chap, this last Earl of Strathmere, with a head
and face that might have done duty for one of Raphael's "Cherubim"
and the big "wonder eyes" that make baby faces so alluring.

"Strathmere, this is Lieutenant Deland, come all the way from India
to visit us," said the Honourable Felix, as Cleek went down on his
knees and spoke to the boy (examining him carefully the while).
"Won't you tell him you are pleased to see him?"

"Pleased to see oo," said the boy, then broke into a shout of glee
as he caught sight of young Essington with the animals and birds.
"Pitty birdies! pitty mouses! Give! give!" he exclaimed eagerly,
stretching forth his little hands.

"Certainly. Which will you have, old chap--magpie, parrakeet, pigeon,
monkey, or mice?" said young Essington, gayly. "Here! take the lot
and be happy!" Then he made as if to bundle them all into the child's
arms, and might have succeeded in doing so, but that Cleek rose up
and came between them and the boy.

"Do have some sense, Essington!" he rapped out sharply. "Those
things may not bite nor claw you, but one can't be sure when they
are handled by some one else. Besides, the boy is not well and he
ought not to be frightened."

"Sorry, old chap--always puttin' my foot into it. But Strathmere
likes 'em, don't you, bonny boy? and I didn't think."

"Take them back to the stables and let's have a go at billiards for
an hour or two before tea," said Cleek, turning as Essington walked
away, and looking after him with narrowed eyes and lips indrawn. When
man and birds were out of sight, however, he made a sharp and sudden
sound, and almost in a twinkling his "Indian servant" slipped into
sight from behind a nearby hedge.

"Get round there and examine those birds after he's left them," said
Cleek, in a swift whisper. "There's one--a magpie--with something
smeared on its be