ter explaining elaborately how she is the laughing-stock of the whole
town."

"By Jove!" repeated Hugh; "by Jove!" He seemed quite stunned. "Have you
seen her yet, K? Does she seem at all cut up?"

"Seen her!" repeated Kate, her mouth a-tremble with sympathy. "Yes, I
went over at once, and she saw me coming and ran this way and then that
to get away from me. And when she couldn't she just dropped down against
the bank on the lawn and sobbed and cried as heartbrokenly as Muffie
might have done."

"I say!" said Hugh. He gulped a lump from his throat. "I say!"

Then he turned on his heel and strode through the cottage and over the
verandah and through the "Tenby" garden and across the road and away
down "Greenways" drive.

"Bless the boy!" said Kate, wiping her eyes. "I know he didn't mean to
hurt the poor thing."

CHAPTER XIII

AN INTERVIEW WITH THE INTERVIEWER

He could hardly wait to ring the bell; the front door was open and
seemed to suggest that he should stride in and march directly to the
room from which children's voices were coming and where the victim of
his brutality most likely also was sitting.

But he thought better of such behaviour and loudly rang the bell.

Anna came down the hall, evidently trying to restrain a giggle at his
dusty appearance.

"Is Miss Bibby in?" he demanded sternly.

Anna looked uncertainly at the sitting-room door. "I--don't know for
certain. Will I go and see?"

"Yes, immediately, please," said Hugh.

She did not ask him in at once: instead she took a few steps to the
sitting-room door, opened it, giggled at the children, smoothed her face
and turned round again.

"She's not in there, sir," she said. "Will you come in and sit down, and
I'll go and see if she's anywhere else?"

Hugh strode into the sitting-room.

"Well, you'd think he'd wash hisself afore he came calling on a lady,"
said Anna to herself as she went in search of Miss Bibby, "an' brush his
dirty hat. If that's what making books brings you to, give me bread,"
and she sent a loving thought to a certain dapper baker of her
acquaintance.

In the sitting-room Pauline had screwed herself round and round on the
piano stool till her knees were higher than the keyboard and she was
able to contemplate her Serenade from a new point of view. She looked at
Hugh in some excitement but without speaking.

Lynn, Muffie and Max had evidently been at work on their letters, but
had all evidently pulled up s