r again--lessons and all." She stole a glance at
Rupert, but his still face betrayed no consciousness of her remark. "I
am going to keep up my character. I am going to play at battledore and
shuttlecock with the boys in the dining-room. Who will come, too? _Qui
m'aime me suit._"

"Then I will be the first to follow," said Hugo, in her ear.

She pouted and drank her tea, glancing half-reluctantly toward Rupert.
But he would not heed.

"I will come, too," said Elizabeth, relieving the awkwardness of a
rather long pause. "I always like to see you play. Kitty is as light as
a bird," she added to Mr. Vivian, who bowed and looked profoundly
uninterested.

Nevertheless, in a few minutes he found the drawing-room so dull without
the young people, that he, too, descended to see what was going on. He
heard the sound of counting in breathless voices as he drew near the
drawing-room. "Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, three hundred. One, two,
three----"

"Kitty and Mr. Luttrell have kept up to three hundred and three, Mr.
Vivian!" cried one of the boys as he entered the room.

Mr. Vivian joined the spectators. It was a pretty sight. Kitty, with her
floating locks, flushed face, trim, light figure, and unerring accuracy
of eye, was well measured against Hugo's lithe grace and dexterity. The
two went on until eight hundred and twenty had been reached; then the
shuttlecock fell to the ground. Kitty had glanced aside and missed her
aim.

"You must try, now, Mr. Vivian," she said, advancing towards him,
battledore in hand, and smiling triumphantly in his face.

"No, thank you," said Rupert, who had been shading his eyes with one
hand, as if the light of the lamps had tried them: "I could not see."

"Could you not? Oh, you are short-sighted, perhaps. Ah! there go Hugo
and Johnny. This is better than being grown-up, I think. Am I like the
little girl that you used to know in Gower-street now, Mr. Vivian?"

It was perhaps her naming Hugo so familiarly that caused Rupert to
reply, with a smile that was more cutting than reproof would have
been:--

"I prefer the little girl in Gower-street still."

From the colour that instantly overspread her face and neck, he saw that
she was hurt or offended--he did not know which. She left his side
immediately, and plunged into the game with renewed ardour. She played
until Hugo left the house about seven o'clock; and then she rushed up to
her room and bolted herself in with unnecessary violence.