ain Bertram didn't even look at Matty. He
was all the time following Beatrice Meadowsweet about like a shadow."

Mrs. Bell gave her head a toss.

"Oh, that's it, is it?" she said. "I didn't think the captain would be
so artful. Mark my word, girls, he behaved like that just as a blind to
put his old mother off the scent."

But as Mrs. Bell spoke her heart sank within her. She remembered again
how Beatrice had looked that evening in the green boat, and she saw once
more Matty's tossed locks and sunburnt hands.

After a time she went upstairs, and without any ceremony entered her
daughter's room.

Matty had tossed off the gaudy silk, and was lying on her bed. Her poor
little face was blistered with tears, and, as Mrs. Bell expressed it, it
"gave me a heart-ache even to look at her." She was not a woman,
however, to own to defeat. She pretended not to see Matty's tears, and
she made her tone purposely very cheerful.

"Come, come, child," she said, "what are you stretched on the bed for,
as if you were delicate? Now, I wouldn't let this get to Captain
Bertram's ears for the world."

"What do you mean, mother?" asked the astonished daughter.

"What I say, my love. I wouldn't let the captain know that you were so
tired as to have to lie down after a game of tennis, for a ten pound
note. Nothing puts a man off a girl so soon as to hear that she's
delicate."

"Oh, he--he doesn't care," half sobbed Matty.

"Oh, doesn't he, though? I never knew anything more like caring than for
him to be too shy to come near you. Things have gone pretty far when a
man has to blind his mother by pretending to be taken up with another
girl. I knew the captain was in love, Matty, but I did not suppose he
was deep enough to play his cards after that fashion. You get up now,
lovey, and come down, and have a nice hot cup of tea. It will revive you
wonderfully, my pet."

Matty allowed her mother to coax her off the bed, and to assist her on
with her every-day brown holland frock. She was a good deal comforted
and inclined to reconsider the position which had seemed so hopeless
half-an-hour ago.

"Only he did neglect me shamefully," she said, with a little toss of her
head. "And I don't see why I should take it from him."

"That's right, my girl. You show Captain Bertram you've got a spirit of
your own. There's nothing brings a man to the point like a girl giving
him a little bit of sauce. Next time he speaks to you, you can be as
stand