've seen enough of the ways of young folk to understand
it. While Susannah bustled back to the house to fetch the relays, the two
parties fell to talking of the weather and the pretty flowers, and from
that to strolling little by little along the pathway; in a body at first;
but afterwards, as one young lady stopped to smell at a carnation, and
another to admire the splashes of colour on Aunt Barbree's York and
Lancaster roses, the company got separated into twos and fours, and the
fours broke up into twos, and the distance between pair and pair kept
getting wider and wider. Ma'amselle Julie ought to have hindered it,
overcome though she was with joy at meeting her kinsman. But she wasn't
to blame for what followed, and for my part I've a kind of notion that Mr.
Hardcastle must have found an opportunity and slipped half a crown into
Susannah's hand. . . . At any rate when Susannah rang a bell along the
lower path to announce that tea was ready, they came strolling back (and
from the variousest corners of the garden) to find that the silly woman
had gone and laid the tables, not in the big summer-house at all, but all
along in a line of little arbours.

Then, Of course, began the prettiest confusion, Ma'amselle Julie
protesting that she couldn't think of allowing such a thing, and Mr.
Hardcastle pointing out what a shame it would be to overwork poor Susannah
by making her lay the tables over again; and the young ladies in a flutter
between laughing and making believe to be angry, and one or two couples
agreeing that the dispute was all about nothing, and that they might as
well find a quiet arbour and wait till it was over.

Yes, yes . . . you understand? . . . And in the midst of it all, and just
as Mr. Hardcastle had carried his point and Ma'amselle Julie gave way,
declaring that never in this world would she be able to look Miss St. Maur
in the face again, who should come hurrying past the verandah but Dr.
Clatworthy himself!

In the babel of talking and laughing no one had heard his footstep; and he
came to a halt by a laylock-bush at the end of the verandah and stood
staring: and while he stared his face went red, and then white, and he
reeled back behind the bush and put both hands to his head.

What had he seen? His bride--his chosen Sophia--disappearing into an
arbour with a young man! And her youthful companions--pupils of an
establishment he had chosen with such care--making merry with a group of
unifor