planted the creeping roses; big clusters of bloom they used to have
on 'em when I was a boy. He showed 'em to me, I remember, and said
what fine climbers they were. Now they were all over the porch, and the
verandah, and the roof of the cottage, all among the shingles. But Mrs.
Storefield wouldn't have 'em cut because her old man had planted 'em.
She came out to see us.

'Well, Ailie, child,' says she, 'come along in, don't sit there on your
horse. Who's this you've got with you? Oh! it's you, Dick, is it? My
eyes ain't as good as they were. Well, come along in too. You're on the
wrong road, and worse 'll come of it. But come along in, I'm not going
to be the one to hunt you. I remember old times when you were a little
toddling chap, as bold as a lion, and no one dreamt you'd grow up to
be the wild chap you are. Gracey's inside, I think. She's as big a fool
about ye as ever.'

I very near broke down at this. I could stand hard usage, and send back
as good as I got; but this good old woman, that had no call to think
anything of me, but that I'd spoiled her daughter's chance of marrying
well and respectably--when she talked to me this way, I came close up to
making a fool of myself.

We walked in. Gracey was sewing away in the little parlour, where there
always used to be a nosegay when I was a boy, and it was that clean and
neat I was afraid to go into it, and never easy till I got out again.
There she sat as sober-looking and steady as if she'd been there for
five years, and meant to be for five years more. She wasn't thinking of
anybody coming, but when she looked up and saw me her face changed all
of a sudden, and she jumped up and dropped her work on the floor.

'Why, whatever brings you here, Dick?' she said. 'Don't you know it's
terribly dangerous? Sir Ferdinand is always about here now. He stayed at
George's new house last night. Wasn't he at Rocky Flat to-day?'

'Yes, but he won't be back for a week. He told Aileen here he wouldn't.'
Here I looked at them both.

'Aileen's carrying on quite a flirtation with Sir Ferdinand,'
says Gracey. 'I don't know what some one else would say if he saw
everything.'

'Doesn't he talk to any one when he comes here, or make himself
pleasant?' I said. 'Perhaps there's more than one in the game.'

'Perhaps there is,' says Gracey; 'but he thinks, I believe, that he can
get something out of us girls about you and your goings on, and where
you plant; and we think we're quite a