s arms.

"You think me a beast!" says she, clinging to him.

"You are tired; you are bothered. Give it up, darling," says he, patting
her on the back, the most approved modern plan of reducing people to a
stale of common sense.

"But you do think it, don't you?"

"No. Barbara. There now, be a good sensible girl, and try to realize
that I don't want you to accept this invitation, and that I am going to
write to my mother in the morning to say it is impossible for us to
leave home just now--as--as--eh?"

"Oh, anything will do."

"As baby is not very well? That's the usual polite thing, eh?"

"Oh! no, don't say that," says Mrs. Monkton in a little, frightened
tone. "It--it's unlucky! It might--I'm not a bit superstitious, Freddy,
but it might affect baby in some way--do him some harm."

"Very well, we'll tell another lie," says Mr. Monkton cheerfully. "We'll
say you've got the neuralgia badly, and that the doctor says it would be
as much as your life Is worth to cross the Channel at this time of
year."

"That will do very well," says Mrs. Monkton readily.

"But--I'm not a bit superstitious," says he solemnly. "But it might
affect you in some way, do you some harm, and--"

"If you are going to make a jest of it, Freddy----"

"It is you who have made the jest. Well; never mind, I accept the
responsibility, and will create even another taradiddle. If I say we are
disinclined to leave home just now, will that do?"

"Yes," says she, after a second's struggle with her better self, in
which it comes off the loser.

"That's settled, then," says Mr. Monkton. "Peace with honor is assured.
Let us forget that unfortunate letter, and all the appurtenances
thereof."

"Yes: do let us, Freddy," says she, as if with all her heart.

* * * * *

But the morning convinces Monkton that the question of the letter still
remains unsettled. Barbara, for one thing, has come down to breakfast
gowned in her very best morning frock, one reserved for those rare
occasions when people drop in over night and sleep with them. She has,
indeed, all the festive appearance of a person who expects to be called
away at a second's notice into a very vertex of dissipation.

Joyce, who is quite as impressed as Monkton with her appearance, gazes
at her with a furtive amazement, and both she and Monkton wait in a sort
of studied silence to know the meaning of it. They aren't given long to
possess their souls in pat