u!

Lady Baltimore lets her spoon fall into her saucer, making a little
quick clatter. Everybody tries to think of something to say; nobody
succeeds.

Mr. Browne, who is evidently choking, is mercifully delivered by
beneficent nature from a sudden death. He gives way to a loud and
sonorous sneeze.

"Oh, Dicky! How funny you do sneeze," says Lady Swansdown. It is a
safety valve. Everybody at once affects to agree with her, and universal
laughter makes the room ring.

"Tommy, I think it is time for you and Mabel to go home," says Lady
Baltimore. "I promised your mother to send you back early. Give her my
love, and tell her I am so sorry she couldn't come to me to-day, but I
suppose last night's fatigue was too much for her."

"'Twasn't that," says Tommy; "'twas because cook----"

"Yes, yes; of course. I know," says Lady Baltimore, hurriedly, afraid of
further revelations. "Now, say good-bye, and, Bertie, you can go as far
as the first gate with them."

The children make their adieus, Tommy reserving Dicky Browne for a last
fond embrace.

"Good-bye, old man! So-long!"

"What's that?" says Tommy, appealing to Beauclerk for information.

"What's what?" says Beauclerk, who isn't in his usual amiable mood.

"What's the meaning of that thing Dicky said to me?"

"'So-long?' Oh that's Browne's charming way of saying good-bye."

"Oh!" says Tommy, thoughtfully. He runs it through his busy brain, and
brings it out at the other end satisfactorily translated. "I know," says
he: "Go long! That's what he meant! But I think," indignantly, "he
needn't be rude, anyway."

The children have hardly gone when Joyce and Dysart enter the room.

"I hope I'm not dreadfully late," cries Joyce, carelessly, taking off
her cap, and giving her head a little light shake, as if to make her
pretty soft hair fall into its usual charming order. "I have no idea
what the time is."

"Broken your watch, Dysart?" says Beauclerk, in a rather nasty tone.

"Come and sit here, dearest, and have your tea," says Lady Baltimore,
making room on the lounge beside her for Joyce, who has grown a little
red.

"It is so warm here," says she, nervously, that one remark of
Beauclerk's having, somehow, disconcerted her. "If--if I might----"

"No, no; you mustn't go upstairs for a little while," says Lady
Baltimore, with kindly decision. "But you may go into the conservatory
if you like," pointing to an open door off the library, that leads into
a bower