t his poor father is gone."

No; certainly the young man was not much occupied with "Fanny and
Rachel!" He spoke with ill-concealed impatience, indeed, of both his
sisters and his mother. If his people would get in the way of everything
he wanted to do, they needn't wonder if he cut up rough at home. For the
present it was settled that he should at any rate go back to Oxford till
the end of the summer term--Aldous heartily pitying the unfortunate dons
who might have to do with him--but after that he entirely declined to be
bound. He swore he would not be tied at home like a girl; he must and
would see the world. This in itself, from a lad who had been accustomed
to regard his home as the centre of all delights, and had on two
occasions stoutly refused to go with his family to Rome, lest he should
miss the best month for his father's trout-stream, was sufficiently
surprising.

However, of late some tardy light had been dawning upon Aldous! The
night after Frank's arrival at the Court Betty Macdonald came down to
spend a few weeks with Miss Raeburn, being for the moment that lady's
particular pet and _protegee_. Frank, whose sulkiness during the
twenty-four hours before she appeared had been the despair of both his
host and hostess, brightened up spasmodically when he heard she was
expected, and went fishing with one of the keepers, on the morning
before her arrival, with a fair imitation of his usual spirits. But
somehow, since that first evening, though Betty had chattered, and
danced, and frolicked her best, though her little figure running up and
down the big house gave a new zest to life in it, Frank's manners had
gone from bad to worse. And at last Aldous, who had not as yet seen the
two much together, and was never an observant man in such matters, had
begun to have an inkling. Was it _possible_ that the boy was in love,
and with Betty? He sounded Miss Raeburn; found that she did not rise to
his suggestion at all--was, in fact, annoyed by it--and with the usual
stupidity of the clever man failed to draw any reasonable inference from
the queerness of his aunt's looks and sighs.

As to the little minx herself, she was inscrutable. She teased them all
in turns, Frank, perhaps, less than the others. Aldous, as usual, found
her a delightful companion. She would walk all over the estate with him
in the most mannish garments and boots conceivable, which only made her
childish grace more feminine and more provocative tha