hint of
wistfulness. She felt as if she had left Noel and his boyish pleasures
very far behind of late.

"What do you want to do?" she said.

"Come into the gun-room and I'll tell you." Noel was all eagerness.
"Coast clear?" he questioned. "Where's Aunt Phil?"

"Waiting for me to go and help her find fault with the gardeners." Chris
was still smiling a little, but there was not much humour in her voice.

"Oh, rats! Don't go!" said Noel. "Come along into the gun-room, and help
me make some fireworks. It will be much more fun."

A spark of the old ardour kindled in Chris's eyes. "Oh, are you going to
make fireworks?" she said. "Have you got the ingredients?"

He nodded. "Nearly all. Come and see. What we haven't got we must
manufacture. I know where there are plenty of cartridges."

Chris yielded to the eager pulling of his arm. "I suppose Trevor wouldn't
mind for once," she said. She had grown unaccountably scrupulous in this
respect.

But Noel jeered at the notion. "Who cares? It'll be all over long
before he comes home to-morrow. We will have a regular jollification
to-night. You and I will run the show, and Aunt Phil and Bertrand can
look on and admire. I say, Chris, I've got a ripping receipt for
Catherine wheels--not the big ones, those little things you hold and buzz
round. You know!"

His enthusiasm was infectious. It drew her almost in spite of herself.
Besides, it meant a temporary respite from the continual burden that
weighed her down, and brief though it must be, she could not bring
herself to refuse it. She went with him, therefore, with the feeling of
one who has signed a truce with the enemy, and in a couple of minutes
they were securely closeted in the gun-room, with the door locked against
all intruders, and all thoughts of Aunt Philippa and any other troublous
problems as resolutely excluded from their minds.

The hours of the morning literally flew. Luncheon-time found them
absorbed in a most critical process.

"Bust lunch!" said Noel. "We can't possibly leave this now."

But Chris's sense of duty proved too strong for her inclination at this
juncture, and she sallied forth from their retreat to rescue Bertrand
from a _tete-a-tete_ meal with her aunt.

There was a sparkle of merriment in her eyes when she entered the
dining-room. The engrossing work of the morning had done her good. She
was fully five minutes late, and Bertrand, who had presented himself
sharp on the hour with military