. Brope is to be permitted to call her Florrie. I am strongly of
opinion than he shall not."

"He may have been repeating the words of some song," said Mrs.
Riversedge hopefully; "there are lots of those sorts of silly refrains
with girls' names," she continued, turning to Clovis as a possible
authority on the subject. "'You mustn't call me Mary--'"

"I shouldn't think of doing so," Clovis assured her; "in the first
place, I've always understood that your name was Henrietta; and then I
hardly know you well enough to take such a liberty."

"I mean there's a SONG with that refrain," hurriedly explained Mrs.
Riversedge, "and there's 'Rhoda, Rhoda kept a pagoda,' and 'Maisie is a
daisy,' and heaps of others. Certainly it doesn't sound like Mr. Brope
to be singing such songs, but I think we ought to give him the benefit
of the doubt."

"I had already done so," said Mrs. Troyle, "until further evidence came
my way."

She shut her lips with the resolute finality of one who enjoys the
blessed certainty of being implored to open them again.

"Further evidence!" exclaimed her hostess; "do tell me!"

"As I was coming upstairs after breakfast Mr. Brope was just passing my
room. In the most natural way in the world a piece of paper dropped
out of a packet that he held in his hand and fluttered to the ground
just at my door. I was going to call out to him 'You've dropped
something,' and then for some reason I held back and didn't show myself
till he was safely in his room. You see it occurred to me that I was
very seldom in my room just at that hour, and that Florinda was almost
always there tidying up things about that time. So I picked up that
innocent-looking piece of paper."

Mrs. Troyle paused again, with the self-applauding air of one who has
detected an asp lurking in an apple-charlotte.

Mrs. Riversedge snipped vigorously at the nearest rose bush,
incidentally decapitating a Viscountess Folkestone that was just coming
into bloom.

"What was on the paper?" she asked.

"Just the words in pencil, 'I love you, Florrie,' and then underneath,
crossed out with a faint line, but perfectly plain to read, 'Meet me in
the garden by the yew.'"

"There IS a yew tree at the bottom of the garden," admitted Mrs.
Riversedge.

"At any rate he appears to be truthful," commented Clovis.

"To think that a scandal of this sort should be going on under my
roof!" said Mrs. Riversedge indignantly.

"I wonder why it is that