on his stick, which was planted firmly on the
ground in front of him, he darted suspicious searching glances among the
surrounding trees.

At the sound of her name uttered in those hard tones Margaret had sprung
to her feet; her face, pale before, had turned yet paler, and her big
hazel eyes fastened themselves with a terror-stricken expression on her
grandfather's face.

"How dare you encourage people to come into my grounds and talk to you
without my permission? Have I not expressly forbidden you to make
acquaintances without my knowledge. Who is this Eleanor Humphreys? Where
is she hiding? What does she mean by coming here and asking you to
accompany her to tennis parties and dances? Answer me. Tell me who she
is, and how she comes to be here without my knowledge."

"She is nobody; she--she is nowhere," stammered Margaret, whose trembling
lips could scarcely frame the words.

"Nobody, nowhere," thundered the old man. "Don't dare to trifle with me,
Margaret. Show her to me immediately, and I will tell her, whoever she
may be, what I think of her for presuming to come here without my leave."

Margaret's lips gave a sudden little twitch, which showed that, badly
frightened as she was, a hint of the humour of the situation had dawned
upon her mind.

"You--you can't scold her, grandfather. She--she isn't real. She is my
dream friend."

There was a momentary silence, during which Margaret, glancing timidly at
her grandfather's stern and angry face and reading there the contemptuous
scorn which he felt for her unworthy self, wished that the earth might
open and swallow her up. But as it remained unyieldingly firm she had
perforce to remain above ground and endure to the full his prolonged
scrutiny.

"So," he said at length, and if anything had been wanting to complete her
discomfiture and to drive away any lingering feeling of mirth, his tone
would have been more than sufficient for that purpose, "so this is the
manner in which you pass your time. In dreaming about imaginary people,
and in holding conversations remarkable for their utter inanity with
them, about tennis parties and dances and pink chiffon parasols."

Failing a yawning chasm at her feet, Margaret would have been thankful
if that same pink parasol had been a reality at that moment, and in her
hand, so that she could have held it as a screen between her crimsoning
face and his pitiless old eyes. She writhed inwardly to think that all
the idle fancie