ief.

"And you decline to accompany him? Well, I think you are about right!"
says Algy, rising, lounging over to the empty hearth, and looking at his
face with a glance of serious fondness in the glass that hangs above the
mantel-shelf.

"I do nothing of the kind!" cry I, indignantly, "I have not the chance!
he will not take me!"

I am not looking at him, nor, indeed, in his direction at all; but I am
aware that Bobby is giving Tou Tou a private and severe nudge, which
means "Attend! here is confirmation of my theory for you!" and that the
idea of the hypothetical black lady is again traversing his ingenuous
mind.

"I hope he will bring us some Jamaica ginger," he says, presently.

"I wish you would mention it, Nancy! the suggestion would come best from
_you_, would not it?"

"And you are to be left _alone_ at Tempest? Is that the plan?" asks
Algy, turning his eyes from his own face, and fixing them on the less
interesting object of mine.

It may be my imagination, but I cannot help fancying that there is a
tone of slight and repressed exultation in his voice; and also that a
look of hope and bright expectation is passing from one to another of
the faces round me. All but Barbara's! Barbara always understands.

"_All alone?_" cries Tou Tou, opening her ugly little eyes to their
widest stretch. "Nobody but the servants in the house with you? Will not
you be very much afraid of _ghosts_?"

"She need never be alone, unless she chooses," says Bobby, winking with
dexterous slightness at the others; "there is the beauty of having three
kind little brothers!"

"The moment you feel _at all_ lonely," says Algy, emphasizing his
remarks by benevolent but emphatic strokes with his flat hand on my
shoulder, "_send for us_! one of us is sure to be handy! If it will be
any comfort to Sir Roger, I shall be most happy to promise him that I
will keep _all_ his horses in exercise next winter!"

"I am sorrier than I was before," says Bobby, reflectively, "that the
heavy rains have drowned so many of the young birds."

"O Nancy!" cries Tou Tou, ecstatically clasping her hands, "_have_ a
Christmas-tree!"

"And a dance after it!" adds Bobby, beginning to whistle a waltz-tune.

"And Sir Roger's not being at home will be a good excuse for not asking
father," cries Algy, catching the prevailing excitement.

"I will not have _one_ of you!" cry I, rising with a face pale, as I
feel with anger--with flashing eyes and a trembling