e dark figure,
and Mr. Crayshaw stumbled out of the chaise, with a small boy holding
tightly to his leg.

'Let go of me directly, you abominable child!' he cried, but the small
arms only tightened their grip of his knee, the thin legs twisted
closely round his ankle, and I am afraid even that a set of very white
sharp little teeth were fastened in the black knee breeches. Poor Mr.
Crayshaw! It was not a dignified position for a very stiff and solemn
London lawyer to have to hop along a gravelled path with a little boy
hanging on to his leg. He made a desperate attempt to unclasp the
clutching fingers, but the sharp teeth were so uncomfortably near his
hand that he gave that up and tried kicking. It did not make it easier
for him either to know that his appearance had been quite too much for
the auntly gravity of Betty, who had her hands over her face to keep
herself from screaming with laughter, while the driver and the
postilion were watching with their mouths expanded into broad grins.

How it would have ended I cannot say; but at this moment Angelica came
forward, standing just in the broad ray of light that streamed through
the open door. She had put on a white dress, with a broad black sash,
and her tall white figure caught Godfrey's eye. He still held on
tightly to Mr. Crayshaw, but he called to her, in a voice half
trembling, half defiant:

'I'm not afraid of you.'

'I don't want you to be, Godfrey,' said Angel, dreadfully puzzled as to
what she ought to do.

'I'm a bad boy,' announced her nephew, with a fresh grip of his
victim's leg, 'but if you turn me into a scorpion I'll sting him and
kill him.'

Betty tried to stifle a fresh explosion of laughter; Angel looked in
dismay at Mr. Crayshaw's black face, then stooped down and laid her
gentle hand quickly on Godfrey's arm.

'Let go, dear, there's a good boy,' she said softly. 'Please do,
because I want to speak to you.'

Her nephew looked straight at her for a moment, and then suddenly
relaxed his hold and dropped down on the path at her feet. Mr.
Crayshaw, feeling, perhaps, that he would gain nothing by stopping to
scold, and just a little afraid of being seized by the other leg,
muttered something indistinctly and walked into the house, limping a
little, for Godfrey's feet and fingers had left their mark. Angel
stooped down and laid her hand on the little boy's shoulder, and he
caught hold of her dress and looked up in her face.

'I know a