the mildest tone.

"And just a suspicion of brandy," puts in Roger, almost affectionately.
Overpowered by their amiability and their suggestions, Dicky turns
towards the house.

"I fly," he says. "Think of me till my return."

"Do tell them to hurry, Dicky," says Dulce, anxiously. "They are always
so slow. And tell them to bring lots of cake."

"You shall have it all in a couple of shakes," says Mr. Browne,
encouragingly, if vulgarly.

"What's that?" asks Dulce, meaning reproof. "It isn't English, is it?
How soon will it be?"

"Oh--half a jiff," returns he, totally unabashed.

Presently tea is brought, and they are all happy, notably Dicky, who
walks round and into the cakes with unceasing fervor.

"By-the-by, I wonder Stephen hasn't been here to-day," says Julia,
addressing no one in particular.

"Something better to do, perhaps," says Portia.

"Yes--where _can_ he be?" says Dulce, waking into sudden animation.
"'Something better to do?' Why, what could that be?"

"Writing sonnets to your eyebrow," answers Roger in an unpleasant tone.

"How clever you are!" retorts she, in a tone even more unpleasant,
letting her white lids fall until they half-conceal the scorn in her
eyes. _Only_ half!

"He is such a jail bird--I beg his pardon, a town bird," says Sir Mark,
lazily, "that I didn't think anything could keep him in the country so
long. Yet, he doesn't _look_ bored. He bears the solitary confinement
very well."

"There is shooting, isn't there?" suggests Portia.

"Any amount of it," says Dicky; "but that don't solve the mystery. He
couldn't shoot a haystack flying, not if his life depended on it. It's
suicide to go out with him! He'd as soon shoot you or me as anything
else. I always say the grouse ought to love him; because I don't believe
he knows the barrel of his gun from the stock."

"How perfectly dreadful!" exclaims Julia, who always takes everything
_au grand serieux_.

"There is other game in the country besides grouse," says Roger, in a
peculiar tone.

"I dare say he can't bear to leave that dear old house now he has got
into it," says Dulce; "it is so lovely, so quaint, so--"

"Now, is it?" asks Dicky Browne, meditatively. "I've seen nicer, I
think. I always feel, when there, as if everything, ceilings, roof and
all were coming down on my unfortunate head."

"But it is so old, so picturesque; a perfect dream, _I_ think," says
Dulce, rather affectedly.

"It isn't half a bad place, bu