d make yourselves comfortable. She had no idea you
were here so secretly, and she didn't know what to do.'

'Father's gone,' said Sol.

'How vexed she will be! She thinks there is something the matter--that
you are angry with her for not telling you earlier. But you will come
in, Sol?'

'No, I can't come in,' said her brother.

'Why not? It is such a big house, you can't think. You need not come
near the front apartments, if you think we shall be ashamed of you in
your working clothes. How came you not to dress up a bit, Sol? Still,
Berta won't mind it much. She says Lord Mountclere must take her as she
is, or he is kindly welcome to leave her.'

'Ah, well! I might have had a word or two to say about that, but the
time has gone by for it, worse luck. Perhaps it is best that I have said
nothing, and she has had her way. No, I shan't come in, Picotee. Father
is gone, and I am going too.'

'O Sol!'

'We are rather put out at her acting like this--father and I and all of
us. She might have let us know about it beforehand, even if she is a
lady and we what we always was. It wouldn't have let her down so
terrible much to write a line. She might have learnt something that
would have led her to take a different step.'

'But you will see poor Berta? She has done no harm. She was going to
write long letters to all of you to-day, explaining her wedding, and how
she is going to help us all on in the world.'

Sol paused irresolutely. 'No, I won't come in,' he said. 'It would
disgrace her, for one thing, dressed as I be; more than that, I don't
want to come in. But I should like to see her, if she would like to see
me; and I'll go up there to that little fir plantation, and walk up and
down behind it for exactly half-an-hour. She can come out to me there.'
Sol had pointed as he spoke to a knot of young trees that hooded a knoll
a little way off.

'I'll go and tell her,' said Picotee.

'I suppose they will be off somewhere, and she is busy getting ready?'

'O no. They are not going to travel till next year. Ethelberta does not
want to go anywhere; and Lord Mountclere cannot endure this changeable
weather in any place but his own house.'

'Poor fellow!'

'Then you will wait for her by the firs? I'll tell her at once.'

Picotee left him, and Sol went across the glade.

46. ENCKWORTH (continued)--THE ANGLEBURY HIGHWAY

He had not paced behind the firs more than ten minutes when Ethelbe