n a lower tone.

So tea is got for them again, and the children, who always seem to
_feel_ when plum-cake is to be had, come trooping noisily up the steps
to join, uninvited, in the festivities.

Great content follows, and, indeed, all is peace until something said by
the Boodie creates a confusion that sweeps calm to the winds. She has
ensconced herself on Mr. Gower's knee, without saying so much as "by
your leave" or "with your leave," and now, raising one soft little
dimpled hand to his chin, turns his face towards her own, and for a full
minute regards him with silent curiosity.

"Well, is your Highness satisfied?" says Gower, feeling amused.

The Boodie takes no notice of this enquiry. She puckers up her smooth
brows as if puzzled, and then says, slowly--

"I don't believe one word of it!"

"Of what?" says Gower. Everybody by this time is looking at the Boodie,
and the Boodie is steadfastly regarding Stephen Gower.

"It wasn't true what she said," goes on the Boodie, meditatively,
"because you have hair on your lip. _Girls_ don't have hair on their
lips--do they?"

"Not as a general rule," says Dicky Browne. "There _have_ been noble
exceptions, but unhappily they are rare. Miss Gaunt is perhaps the only
girl down here who can boast of hirsute adornment, and the growth upon
her upper lip is not to be despised. But then she belongs to the higher
and more powerful class of females, in fact, as Wordsworth so touchingly
expresses it, she

'Wears upon her forehead clear
The freedom of a mountaineer.'

I always--mildly--think Wordsworth must have been acquainted with Miss
Gaunt."

"Go on," says Stephen to the Boodie, who is still lost in thought. "You
have not yet told me what it is you disbelieve."

"It was something Portia said," returns the Boodie, composedly.

"That _I_ said! surely you are mistaken, darling," says Portia.

"No, I am not," persists the Boodie, in an unmoved tone.

"Stephen," again turning his face to hers, "are you 'meke'?"

At this word all the truth becomes at once known to Portia and Dulce.
The Boodie had been in the room when they were discussing Stephen with
her mother. She had heard everything. She is a little pitcher--she has
long ears. Can nothing be done to stop her further speech?

"He is a very nice boy, but I'm not prepared to go as far as calling him
meek," says Dicky Browne, who begins to scent mischief in the air. "Who
applied that word to him?"