the lintel with the comfortable
ease of being irresponsibly diverted, sagely pointed out that that was
the function of the arbitrator.

"Ah well, suppose we begin by giving up Seth Davis, eh? You see that I'm
pretty well posted, Miss Cressy."

"You alarm me," said Cressy sweetly. "But I reckon he HAD given up."

"He was in the running that night at the ball. Looked half savage while
I was dancing with you. Wanted to eat me."

"Poor Seth! And he used to be SO particular in his food," said the witty
Cressy.

Mr. Stacey was convulsed. "And there's Mr. Dabney--Uncle Ben," he
continued, "eh? Very quiet but very sly. A dark horse, eh? Pretends to
take lessons for the sake of being near some one, eh? Would he were a
boy again because somebody else is a girl?"

"I should be frightened of you if you lived here always," returned
Cressy with invincible naivete; "but perhaps then you wouldn't know so
much."

Stacey simply accepted this as a compliment. "And there's Masters," he
said insinuatingly.

"Not Joe?" said Cressy with a low laugh, turning her eyes to the door.

"Yes," said Stacey with a quick, uneasy smile. "Ah! I see we mustn't
drop HIM. Is he out THERE?" he added, trying to follow the direction of
her eyes.

But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. "Is that all?" she
asked after a pause.

"Well--there's that solemn school-master, who cut me out of the waltz
with you--that Mr. Ford."

Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen
the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed
by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes,
which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room. But
he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but
languid play of expression and color came back, and she turned her head
lazily towards the speaker. "There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't
mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before
you try it on me?"

"Certainly not," said Stacey, by no means displeased at the prospect of
having so pretty and intelligent a witness in the daughter of what he
believed would form an attractive display of his diplomatic skill and
graciousness to the father. "Don't go away. I've got nothing to say Miss
Cressy could not understand and answer."

The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of McKinstry and his shot-gun
falling at this moment between the speake