eld his head like a
gentleman unable to conceive the ignominy of having played spy. Chloe
shrank from him.

Duchess Susan was distinguished coming across a broad uncut meadow,
tirra-lirraing beneath a lark, Caseldy in attendance on her. She stopped
short and spoke to him; then came forward, crying ingenuously. 'Oh, Mr.
Beamish, isn't this just what you wanted me to do?'

'No, madam,' said he, 'you had my injunctions to the contrary.'

'La!' she exclaimed, 'I thought I was to run about in the fields now and
then to preserve my simplicity. I know I was told so, and who told me!'

Mr. Beamish bowed effusively to the introduction of Caseldy, whose
fingers he touched in sign of the renewal of acquaintance, and with a
laugh addressed the duchess:

'Madam, you remind me of a tale of my infancy. I had a juvenile comrade
of the tenderest age, by name Tommy Plumston, and he enjoyed the
privilege of intimacy with a component urchin yclept Jimmy Clungeon,
with which adventurous roamer, in defiance of his mother's interdict
against his leaving the house for a minute during her absence from
home, he departed on a tour of the district, resulting, perhaps as a
consequence of its completeness, in this, that at a distance computed at
four miles from the maternal mansion, he perceived his beloved mama with
sufficient clearness to feel sure that she likewise had seen him.
Tommy consulted with Jimmy, and then he sprang forward on a run to his
frowning mama, and delivered himself in these artless words, which I
repeat as they were uttered, to give you the flavour of the innocent
babe: he said, "I frink I frought I hear you call me, ma! and Jimmy
Clungeon, he frought he frink so too!" So, you see, the pair of them
were under the impression that they were doing right. There is a
delicate distinction in the tenses of each frinking where the other
frought, enough in itself to stamp sincerity upon the statement.'

Caseldy said, 'The veracity of a boy possessing a friend named Clungeon
is beyond contest.'

Duchess Susan opened her eyes. 'Four miles from home! And what did his
mother do to him?'

'Tommy's mama,' said Mr. Beamish, and with the resplendent licence of
the period which continued still upon tolerable terms with nature under
the compromise of decorous 'Oh-fie!' flatly declared the thing she did.

'I fancy, sir, that I caught sight of your figure on the hill yonder
about an hour or so earlier,' said Caseldy to Mr. Camwell.

'I