ys Miss Priscilla. "Am I to understand--nay, I hope I am
_not_ to understand--that you crossed the stile into Coole?"

"There are plenty of rabbits in our own wood," says Terence; "more than
I could shoot. I am glad you don't object to my having the gun, auntie."

"I don't, my dear; but I wish you had been more ingenuous with us. Why
now, Terence, _why_ do you steal along a field with your back bent as
though desirous of avoiding our observation, and with your gun _under_
your coat, as if there was a policeman or a bailiff after you?"

"I was only trying to steal upon a crow, aunt."

"Well, that _may be_, my dear, but there are ways of doing things. And
why put your gun _under_ your coat? I can't think such a fraudulent
proceeding necessary even with a crow. Now look here, Terence,"
illustrating his walk and surreptitious manner of concealing his gun
beneath his coat, "_does_ this look nice?"

"If I do it like _you_, auntie, it looks _very_ nice," says Terence,
innocently, but with a malevolent intention.

"What a pity you missed the rabbit, Terry!" says Monica, hurriedly.

"Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him
home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down
below in the furze brake at Coole."

Sensation!

It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that see we day by
day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two
old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each
other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty
brother.

The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss
Priscilla speaks.

"So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!"

"I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't going to let
the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim."

"_A mere whim!_" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's indignation.
"Are you destitute of heart, boy, that you talk thus lightly of a family
insult? Oh! shame, shame!"

"I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence, who is really
a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean it, _indeed_."

But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted.

"To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!" she says, with
quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope into prominent
play.

"If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she says, "you
had said to yourself, '