r said. "It's great, that old
Wallingham asking him to dinner. And haven't I just been spreading it!"

"Where have you been, Stella?" asked Mrs Murchison.

"Oh, only over to the Milburns'. Dora asked me to come and show her
the new flower-stitch for table centres. Dora's suddenly taken to fancy
work. She's started a lot--a lot too much!" Stella added gloomily.

"If Dora likes to do fancy work I don't see why anybody should want to
stop her," remarked Mrs Murchison, with a meaning glance at her husband.

"I suppose she thinks she's going to get Lorne," said Stella. Her
resentment was only half-serious, but the note was there.

"What put that into your head?" asked her mother.

"Oh, well, anybody can see that he's devoted to her, and has been
for ages, and it isn't as if Lorne was one to HAVE girlfriends; she's
absolutely the only thing he's ever looked at twice. She hasn't got a
ring, that's true, but it would be just like her to want him to get it
in England. And I know they correspond. She doesn't make any secret of
it."

"Oh, I dare say! Other people have eyes in their head as well as you,
Stella," said Mrs Murchison, stooping for her ball. "But there's no need
to take things for granted at such a rate. And, above all, you're not to
go TALKING, remember!"

"Well, if you think Dora Milburn's good enough," returned Lorne's
youngest sister in threatening accents, "it's more than I do, that's
all. Hello, Miss Murchison!" she continued, as Advena appeared. "You're
looking 'xtremely dinky-dink. Expecting his reverence?"

Advena made no further reply than a look of scornful amusement, which
Stella, bicycling forth again, received in the back of her head.

"Father," said Mrs Murchison, "if you had taken any share in the
bringing up of this family, Stella ought to have her ears boxed this
minute!"

"We'll have to box them," said Mr Murchison, "when she comes back."
Advena had retreated into the house. "IS she expecting his reverence?"
asked her father with a twinkle.

"Don't ask me! I'm sure it's more than I can tell you. It's a mystery
to me, that matter, altogether. I've known him come three evenings in a
week and not again for a month of Sundays. And when he does come there
they sit, talking about their books and their authors; you'd think the
world had nothing else in it! I know, for I've heard them, hard at it,
there in the library. Books and authors won't keep their house or look
after their family for them