He only knew how to butt and blunder
resonantly at the glass; but he could do it as well as ever, and he
seemed to have made up his mind to persevere. Sally listened to his
monotone, and watched her image in the urn.

"I wish I hadn't promised not to ask more," she thought to herself.
"Anyhow, Tishy's wrong. Nobody ever was named Palliser--that's flat!
And if there was a divorce-suit ever so, _I_ don't care!..." She had to
stop thinking for a moment, to make terms with the cat, who otherwise
would have got her claws in the beautiful white damask, and ripped.

"Besides, if my precious father behaved so badly to mamma, how could it
be _her_ fault? I don't _believe_ in mother being the _least_ wrong in
anything, so it's no use!" This last filled out a response to an
imaginary indictment of an officious Crown-Prosecutor. "I know what I
should like! I should like to get at that old Scroope, or whatever his
name is, and get it all out of him. I'd give him a piece of my mind,
gossipy old humbug!" It then occurred to Sally that she was being
unfair. No, she wouldn't castigate old Major Roper for tattling, and at
the same time cross-examine him for her own purposes. It would be
underhand. But it would be very easy, if she could get at him, to make
him talk about it. She rehearsed ways and means that might be employed
to that end. For instance, nothing more natural than to recur to the
legend of how she bit General Pellew's finger; that would set him off!
She recited the form of speech to be employed. "Do you know, Major
Roper, I'm told I once bit a staff-officer's finger off," etc. Or would
it be better not to approach the matter with circumspection, but go
straight to the point--"You must have met my father, Major Roper,
etc.," and then follow on with explanations? Oh dear, how difficult it
was to settle! If only there were any one she could trust to talk to
about it! Really, Tishy was quite out of the question, even if she
could take her mind off her Bradshaw for five minutes, which she
couldn't.

"Of course, there's Prosy, if you come to that," was the conclusion
reached at the end of a long avenue of consideration, on each side of
which referees who might have been accepted, but had been rejected,
were supposed to be left to their disappointment. "Only, fancy making
a confidant of old Prosy! Why, he'd feel your pulse and look at your
tongue, just as likely as not."

But Dr. Vereker, thus dismissed to the rejected refere