foil Andrew Fraser's Loch Leven
tactics of imprisoning his niece and ward.

"You will have but a brief honeymoon, Eric!" laughed Hardwicke.

"You have promised to stand by me, Harry," replied his friend. "See me
married to-morrow, then a week's honeymoon at Jersey is all that I ask!
I can bestow my wife there with a dear friend, who has the prettiest old
Norman chateau-maison on the island, and after that be near you there at
Rozel Bay to work up the final discomfiture of this old vampire. I
only claim the attendance of the whole party at my wedding, then I will
disappear and spy out the ground for you long before you are ready to
astonish the dreamy old bookworm. I have made my own plans, and Flossie
has agreed to our runaway trip 'in the interests of the service'! She
is a soldier's daughter, remember!" Miss Mildred, wreathed in her soft
laces, shimmering in her gray poplin, and bending her stately head in
salutation, extended a delicate hand, loaded down with quaint old Indian
rings, to each, when the coffee was served.

"I will leave you now to the hatching of your famous conspiracy for the
invasion of the Island of Jersey." The old gentlewoman passed smilingly
through the door where the three knightly soldiers stood bowing low, and
then the four conspirators sat down to arrange the dramatis persona of a
little society play in "High Life," in which Professor Andrew Fraser was
destined to be the central figure, and act without "lines" or rehearsal.

The "leading lady" was at the present moment dreaming of a golden future
in her own rooms at the "Banker's Folly." Nadine Johnstone had been
allowed to make her apartments as bright and cheery as her buoyant
nature suggested.

For Andrew Fraser, after much discussion with Janet Fairbarn, had
convoyed the heiress to St. Heliers for a day. The resources of all the
local furnishers were taxed by the young prisoner's taste, and, the old
executor, unbending a little, grimly vaunted his "dangerous liberality."
"I'll be bail for the expenditure of five hundred pounds, as an extra
allowance," he said. "Now make yourself snug here, for ye'll bide here
the whole three years! As to the bookmen, music, and libraries, I'll
give ye a free hand.

"The yearly allowance of yere lamented father will cover all yere
dealings with mantua-makers and milliners. That is yere own affair--all
that sort of womanly gear. We will make one day of it, and if ye are
lacking aught, then Miss Janet