low, that midshipman staying here! Why couldn't you fancy him,
now? And lots of others! Let alone taking up with a man older and uglier
than your own fath--I mean, than the parson! You've no call to hang your
harp on a willow tree, on account of the likes of him!"

"Indeed, ma'am, I do not in the least regret Col. Anglesea," said Odalite,
earnestly.

"Lord, don't you, sure enough? Then you wa'n't so very fond of him, after
all? Oh, bother! there's that clang-clang of a dinner bell again!" said
the speaker, stopping short in her speech.

"Shall I have the honor, madam?" inquired the master of the house, coming
up and offering his arm to take her into the dining room.

The rector spent the evening at Mondreer, and then, as a snowstorm was
threatened, he accepted his host's and hostess' invitation and stayed all
night with them.

Leonidas Force did not return to Mondreer that evening, but the
circumstance caused no surprise nor uneasiness, as the young master of
Greenbushes was often detained by business to so late an hour that he
spent the night at the place.

CHAPTER XXVIII

A STORM BREWING AT MISS SIBBY'S

"Now, tell the truth, and shame the devil, Roland Bayard! Where have you
been for the last twenty-four hours?" inquired Miss Sibby, on the
afternoon of the same day that witnessed the rector's visit to Mondreer.

"To tell you the truth, then, Aunt Sibby, I have been to Port Tobacco,
waiting for a telegram."

"A telegram!"

"Yes, a telegram. After the wedding circus yesterday, the nobs decided to
cuss the cost and send several miles of telegram to California, to find
out the truth about that alleged marriage."

"Yes, I heard that."

"Well, the squire couldn't take the message, and so he asked the rector to
do it. And the rector promised everything the squire wanted, and then,
when it was too late to go back from his word, he remembered that he had
to make a sick call on a man that was given over by the doctors, and might
have to stay with him all night. And I was there, and heard him bewailing
his dilemma, and--what could a gentleman do? I offered to take the message
to Port Tobacco, and wait there for the answer."

"Well, and to make a long story short, you went there and took the
opportunity to stay all night and go on a lark among them low-life tavern
people--you, the only adopted nephew and namesake of a lady descended from
the Duke of England! I'm ashamed of you!" said Miss Bayard, wrathfu