med officers--of soldiers--well known to be the most profligate of
men!

Oh, monstrous!

But what was to be done? Could he stalk into the midst of the party and
raise a scene? The young men might laugh at him. . . . Even supposing he
put them to rout, what next was he to do? He would find himself with
those abandoned girls left on his hands. A pleasant tea-party, that!
And Miss St. Maur might not be arriving for another hour. Could he spend
all that time in lecturing them? Could he even trust himself to speak to
Sophia? Dr. Clatworthy, still with his hands to his head, staggered down
the steps and forth from the garden.

He had done with Sophia for ever! His first demand of a woman worthy to
be his wife was that she should never have looked upon another man to make
eyes at him, and he had distinctly seen (Oh, monstrous, monstrous, to be
sure!). . . . He would go straight home and write Miss St. Maur a letter
the like of which that lady had never received in her life.

With these terrible thoughts working in his head, the poor man had crossed
a couple of fields on his way home when he looked up and saw Miss St. Maur
herself coming towards him along the footpath over the knap of the hill.

"Dr. Clatworthy!" cried Miss St. Maur.

"Ma'am," said Dr. Clatworthy.

"Why--why, wherever have you left dear Sophia and the rest of my charges?"

"At Merry-Garden, ma'am--and in various summer-houses, ma'am--and making
free, ma'am, with a vicious soldiery!"

"But it is impossible!" cried Miss St. Maur when he had told his tale of
horror. "I refuse to believe it. Indeed, sir, I can only think you have
taken leave of your senses!"

"Come and see for yourself, ma'am," said the doctor, cold as ice to look
at, but with an inside like a furnace.

He was forced almost to a run to keep pace with Miss St. Maur: but at the
steps leading up to the garden he made her promise him to go quiet, and
the pair tiptoed up and through the verandah and peered around the
laylock-bush.

"There!" cried Miss St. Maur, turning to him and pointing up the path with
her parasol.

To and fro along the path a party of young ladies was strolling
disconsolate. They walked in pairs, to be sure: and the hum of their
voices reached to the laylock-bush as they bent and discussed the flowers
in Aunt Barbree's border. Not a uniform, not a man, was in sight.

"There!" said Miss St. Maur. "There, sir! What did I tell you?"

VII.

The caus