"

It was now Lanigan's turn to smile.

"You think you would better not wait for the second table," he said;
"very well, then; come on."

The lesson on the bench had been deliberately planned by Mrs. Cristie.
She had been considering the subject of her nurse-maid and Lanigan Beam,
and had decided that it was her duty to interfere with the growth of
that intimacy. She felt that it was her duty to exercise some personal
supervision over the interests of the young person in her service, and
had given her some guarded advice in regard to country-resort
intimacies.

Having given this advice to Ida Mayberry, it struck Mrs. Cristie that it
would apply very well to herself. She remembered that she was also a
young person, and she resolved to take to herself all the advice she had
given to her nurse-maid, and thus it was that she was sitting on the
bench by Mr. Tippengray, listening to his very interesting discourse
upon some of the domestic manners and customs of the ancients, and their
surprising resemblance in many points to those of the present day.
Therefore it was, also, that she allowed Walter Lodloe to pass on his
way without inviting him to join the party.

When Lodloe and Beam reached Lethbury, the latter proposed that they
should go and worry Calthea Rose; and to his companion's surprised
exclamation at being asked to join in this diversion Lanigan answered,
that having been used to that sort of thing all his life, it seemed the
most natural sport in which to indulge now that he found himself in
Lethbury again.

"Very good," said Lodloe, as they approached Miss Rose's place of
business; "I shall not interfere with your native sports, but I do not
care to join them. I shall continue my walk, and stop for you on my way
back."

When Lanigan Beam entered Miss Rose's shop she was sitting, as was her
custom, by the back window, sewing. A neighbor had dropped in to chat
with her a half-hour before, but had gone away very soon. The people of
Lethbury had learned to understand when Calthea Rose did not wish to
chat.

Miss Calthea was not happy; she was disappointed. Things had not gone as
she hoped they would go, and as she had believed they would go when she
accepted Mrs. Petter's invitation to tea. That meal had been a very
pleasant one; even the presence of Ida Mayberry, who came to table with
the family when the baby happened to be asleep, did not disturb her. On
the contrary, it gratified her, for Lanigan Beam