ning. We're talking about your sister. She's a most
estimable woman, my dear Bish-- Oh, pshaw! I can't always call you by
your title."

"Call me Josephus," he said.

"No, I couldn't call you that, either. It's too dreadful. I'll call you
Joe."

The Bishop beamed with joy.

"And I," he faltered, "may I call you Violet?"

"No," she said, "I don't think it's proper in a man of your position."

"But if you call me--Joe--"

"Well!" she cried, laughing, "we'll make a compromise. Suppose you call
me 'the Leopard'?"

"To be sure," he said. "Mrs. Mackintosh spoke of you as
that--er--quadruped. But what does it mean?"

"You want to know a great deal too much for a man of your age. It's an
animal that is more than once mentioned in Scripture, and that ought to
be sufficient for your purposes. So we'll have it understood that his
Lordship's Leopard is quite at his Lordship's service, if his Lordship
doesn't mind."

"Mind!" he cried ecstatically, eyeing the other side of the table. But
Miss Violet intended to have the board between them.

"Take another glass of champagne, and keep quiet," she said sternly.
"We're talking about your estimable but impossible sister. My dear Joe,
you'll never have any sport till you've got rid of her."

"But how shall I get rid of her?" he asked despondently. Even champagne
was not proof against the depression induced by such an appalling
thought.

"Oh, send her to a course of mud-baths or a water-cure!"

"I might try it--if--if you'd help me--if you'd take her place at the
palace. I mean--"

"Josephus!" she called, in such an exact imitation of his sister's tone
that it made him sit right up. "Josephus! don't say another word! I know
what you mean--and you're an old dear--and I'm not going to let you make
a fool of yourself. You're aged enough to be my father, and if your son
had had his way you would have been my father-in-law. I want to have a
good time, and I want you to have a good time; but that isn't the proper
manner in which to set about it. No, you send the old lady packing, for
the good of her health, and Mrs. Mackintosh and I'll help you and Cecil
entertain, and we'll have a dance, and a marquee, and lots of punch. I
dare say you've never been to a dance in your life," she rattled on,
not giving him a chance to blunder out excuses.

"I'm not such an old fogey as you think me," he began. "But I want to
say--er--Miss--Leopard--"

"Oh, no, you don't," she interrupted. "Y