boats
tossing on the sea. The sense of neighbouring strain and struggle added
to the completeness of his own repose. A bed of mignonette scented the
air agreeably. Some white roses glimmered faintly in the twilight Far
off, a grey still shadow, lay the bay. Frank's cigarette dropped, half
smoked, from his fingers. He slept deliciously.

A few minutes later he woke with a start Priscilla stood over him. She
was wrapt from her neck to her feet in a pale blue dressing-gown. Her
hair hung down her back in a tight plait. On her feet were a pair of
well worn bedroom slippers. The big toe of her right foot had pushed its
way through the end of one of them.

"I say, Cousin Frank, are you awake? I've been here for hours, dropping
small stones on your head, so as to rouse you up. I daren't make any
noise, for they're still jawing away inside and I was afraid they'd hear
me. Could you struggle along a bit further away from the window? I'll
carry your chair."

They found a nook behind the rose-bed which Priscilla held to be
perfectly safe. Frank settled down on his chair. Priscilla, with her
knees pulled up to her chin, sat on a cushion at his feet.

"Aunt Juliet hunted me off to bed at half-past nine," she said.
"Dastardly tyranny! And she sent Mrs. Geraghty to do my hair--not that
she cared if my hair was never done, but so as to make sure that I
really undressed. Plucky lot of good that was!"

The precaution had evidently been of no use at all; but neither Miss
Lentaigne nor Mrs. Geraghty could have calculated on Priscilla's roaming
about the grounds in her dressing-gown.

"The reason of the tyranny," said Priscilla, "was plain enough. Aunt
Juliet was smoking a cigarette."

"Good gracious!" said Frank. "I should never have thought your aunt
smoked."

"She doesn't. She never did before, though she may take to it regularly
now for a time. I simply told her that she oughtn't to chew the end.
No real smoker does; and I could see that she didn't like the wads of
tobacco coming off on her tongue. Besides, it was beastly waste of
the cigarette. She chawed off quite as much as she smoked. You'd have
thought she'd have been obliged to me for giving her the tip, but quite
the contrary. She hoofed me off to bed."

"But what has made her take to smoking?"

"She had to," said Priscilla. "I don't think she really likes it, but
with her principles she simply had to. It's part of what's called the
economic independence of women and