et 'cause I
bean't not so lusty as some on 'em."

"Have you learnt to read?"

"Oh yes, very nicely," interposed Miss Vivian.

"Did you teach him?" said Rosamond.

"No! He could read well before I came to the place. I have only
been at home six weeks, you know, and I did not know I was poaching
on your manor," she added sotto voce to Julius, who could not but
answer with warm thanks.

It was discovered that the rain had set in for the night, and an
amicable contest ensued between the ladies as to shawl and umbrella,
each declaring her dress unspoilable, till it ended in Eleonora
having the shawl, and both agreeing to share the umbrella as far as
the Sirenwood lodge.

However, the umbrella refused to open, and had to be given to the
boy, who set his teeth into an extraordinary grin, and so dealt with
the brazen gear as to expand a magnificent green vault, with a
lesser leathern arctic zone round the pole; but when he had handed
it to Miss Vivian, and she had linked her arm in Lady Rosamond's, it
proved too mighty for her, tugged like a restive horse, and would
fairly have run away with her, but for Rosamond's holding her fast.

"Lost!" they cried. "Two ladies carried away by an umbrella!"

"Here, Julius, no one can grapple with it but you," called Rosamond.

"I really think it's alive!" panted Eleonora, drawn up to her tip-
toes before she could hand it to Julius, who, with both clinging to
his arm, conducted them at last to the lodge, where Julius could
only come in as far as it would let him, since it could neither be
let down nor left to itself to fly to unknown regions.

A keeper with a more manageable article undertook to convey Miss
Vivian home across the park; and with a pleasant farewell, husband
and wife plodded their way home, along paths the mud of which could
not be seen, only heard and felt; and when Rosamond, in the light of
the hall, discovered the extent of the splashes, she had to leave
Julius still contending with the umbrella; and when, in spite of the
united efforts of the butler and footman, it still refused to come
down, it was consigned to an empty coach-house, with orders that
little Joe should have a shilling to bring it down and fetch it home
in the morning!

CHAPTER IV
Shades In Sunshine

My friends would be angered,
My minnie be mad.--Scots Song

"Whom do you think we met, mother?" said Julius, coming into her
room, so soon as he had made his evening toilette, a