the stables."

"You had better tell the groom he need not wait, and then please come to
my room, Percy," said Mrs Rimbolt.

Percy shouted down to Walker to send away the horse, and followed his
mother into her boudoir.

"Percy, my dear boy," began the lady, "I am sorry to say I have just had
to perform a very unpleasant duty. You can hardly understand--"

"What about--anything about Jeff?" interrupted the boy, jumping at the
truth.

"It is. It has been necessary, for everybody's sake, that he should
leave here."

"What!" thundered Percy, turning pale and clutching the back of his
chair; "you've sent Jeff away--kicked him out?"

"Come, Percy, don't be unreasonable. I--"

"When did he go--how long ago?" exclaimed the boy, half frantic.

"Percy, you really--"

"How long ago?"

"It is more than an hour since--"

Percy waited to hear no more; he dashed down the stairs and shouted to
Walker.

"Did you see Jeffreys go? Which way did he go?"

"I didn't see--"

"Come and help me look for him, he's sure to be about. Tell Appleby, do
you hear? Raby, I say," he exclaimed, as his cousin appeared in the
hall, "Jeff's been kicked out an hour ago! I'm going to find him!" and
the poor lad, with a heart almost bursting, flung open the door and
rushed out into the street.

Alas! it was a fool's errand, and he knew it. Still, he could not
endure to do nothing.

After two weary hours he gave it up, and returned home dispirited and
furious. Walker and Appleby had taken much less time to appreciate the
uselessness of the search, and had returned an hour ago from a
perfunctory walk round one or two neighbouring streets.

Our young Achilles, terrible in his wrath, would see no one, not even
his mother, not even Raby. Once or twice that evening they heard the
front door slam, and knew he once more was on the look-out. Mrs
Rimbolt, alarmed at the storm which she had raised, already repented of
her haste, and telegraphed to Mr Rimbolt to come to London.

Raby, bewildered and miserable, shut herself up in her room and was seen
by no one. It was a wretched night for everybody; and when next morning
Mrs Rimbolt, sitting down to breakfast, was met with the news that
neither Master Percy nor Miss Raby wanted breakfast, she began to feel
that the affair was being overdone.

When Mr Rimbolt arrived, though he concealed his feelings better, he
was perhaps the most mortified of all at the wretched misadventure which