"Endanger your life for me."

"There was no danger--and you had expressed a wish for them."

CHAPTER X.

"Every one is as God made him, and oftentimes a great deal worse!"
--MIGUEL DE CERVANTES.

WITH a continuous sob and a roar from the distant ocean the storm beats
on. All night it has hurled itself upon path and lawn with impotent
fury; towards morning it still rages, and even now, when noonday is at
its height, its anger is not yet expended.

The rain falls in heavy torrents, the trees bow and creak most
mournfully, the rose leaves--sweet-scented and pink as glowing morn--are
scattered along the walks, or else, lifted high in air by vehement gusts
of wind, are dashed hither and thither in a mazy dance full of passion
and despair.

"Just three o'clock," says Dulce, drearily, "and what weather!"

"It is always bad on your day," says Julia, with a carefully suppressed
yawn. Julia, when yawning, is not pretty. "I remember when I was here
last year, that Thursday, as a rule, was the most melancholy day in the
week."

Indeed, as she speaks, she looks more than melancholy, almost aggrieved.
She has donned her most sensational garments (there is any amount of red
about them) and her most recherche cap to greet the country, and naught
cometh but the rain.

"I don't know anything more melancholy at any time than one's at-home
day," says Dicky Browne, meditatively, and very sorrowfully; "It is like
Sunday, it puts every one out of sorts, and creates evil tempers all
round. I never yet knew any family that didn't go down to zero when
brought face to face with the fact that to-day they must receive their
friends."

"It's a pity you can't talk sense," says Dulce, with a small curl of her
upper lip.

"It's a pity I _can_, you mean. I am too above-board, too genuine for
the times in which we live. My candor will be my ruin!" says Mr. Browne,
hopelessly unabashed.

"It will!" declares Roger, in a tone that perhaps it will be wise not to
go into.

"I suppose nobody will come here to-day," says Portia, somewhat
disappointedly; they have been indoors all day, and have become so low
in spirit, that even the idea of possible visitors is to be welcomed
with delight.

"Nobody," returns Sir Mark, "except the Boers and Miss Gaunt, and _they_
are utter certainties; they always come; they never fail us; they are
thoroughly safe people in every respect."

"If Miss Gaunt infl