e, when the shock of disappointment was still fresh,
he wrote sundry scathing letters to Miss Elisabeth Farringdon, which she
in turn showed to Christopher, rousing the fury of the latter thereby.

"He is a cad--a low cad!" exclaimed Christopher, after the perusal of
one of these epistles; "and I should like to tell him what I think of
him, and then kick him."

Elisabeth laughed; she always enjoyed making Christopher angry. "He
wanted to marry me," she remarked, by way of adding fuel to the flames.

"Confounded impudence on his part!" muttered Christopher.

"But he left off when he found out that I hadn't got any money."

"Worse impudence, confound him!"

"Oh! I wish you could have seen him when I told him that the money was
not really mine," continued Elisabeth, bubbling over with mirth at the
recollection; "he cooled down so very quickly, and so rapidly turned his
thoughts in another direction. Don't you know what it is to bite a
gooseberry at the front door while it pops out at the back? Well, Cecil
Farquhar's love-making was just like that. It really was a fine sight!"

"The brute!"

"Never mind about him, dear! I'm tired of him."

"But I do mind when people dare to be impertinent to you. I can't help
minding," Christopher persisted.

"Then go on minding, if you want to, darling--only don't let us waste
our time in talking about him. There's such a lot to talk about that is
really important--why you said so-and-so, and how you felt when I said
so-and-so, ten years ago; and how you feel about me to-day, and whether
you like me as much this afternoon as you did this morning; and what
colour my eyes are, and what colour you think my new frock should be;
and heaps of really serious things like that."

"All right, Betty; where shall we begin?"

"We shall begin by making a plan. Do you know what you are going to do
this afternoon?"

"Yes; whatever you tell me. I always do."

"Well, then, you are coming with me to have tea at Mrs. Bateson's, just
as we used to do when we were little; and I have told her to invite Mrs.
Hankey as well, to make it seem just the same as it used to be. By the
way, is Mrs. Hankey as melancholy as ever, Chris?"

"Quite. Time doth not breathe on her fadeless gloom, I can assure you."

"Won't it be fun to pretend we are children again?" Elisabeth exclaimed.

"Great fun; and I don't think it will need much pretending, do you
know?" replied Christopher, who saw deeper sometimes tha