ought the coachman was drunk, and
as she got out she said very sternly, 'You will come to me in the
library immediately, Williams.' 'Yes, darling,' said Francis, and
jumped off the box and gave her a great hug. It must have been very
funny."

"You would think it particularly funny if you had known Lady Louisa,"
assented Isabella. But she said nothing of a girl who had crouched
behind the gatepost, shivering with cold and excitement, to watch the
success of the plot which had been hatched by two playmates in the
fragrant fastness of the hayloft, which had been always their favourite
hiding-place. To this day the scent of hay gave Isabella a delicious
tremor, a thrill of the old joyful dread of discovery, which had been
the charm of the innocent conspiracies of those far-off days. That it
had been her fellow-conspirator who usually undertook the carrying out
of the deeds of derring-do, and that upon her had fallen the humbler
task of keeping guard against any possible surprise--covering his
tracks--averting suspicion--even occasionally taking the blame, though
this was without his knowledge,--made no difference to her intense
enjoyment. The axiom that one must lead and the other must follow had
been early instilled into her by her masculine comrade, and she for her
part had been only too content to follow so long as it was he who led.
She had forgotten nothing. If it came to stories about Francis as a
boy, she could, had she so wished, have recounted as many as old
Goodie, but she listened to the recital with a calmness that gave
Philippa no hint of her real feelings.

"She showed me a lot of his drawings, too," Philippa said presently.
"It seems rather curious that he has never spoken of that, for I think
he had been painting the first day I saw him. Dr. Gale told me it was
one of his occupations during all the years he was ill. Perhaps he
will take it up later on--it will be an interest for him."

"He used to do a good deal of it at times before he was ill," said
Isabella. "At one time he had an idea of taking it up seriously, but
he was always too fond of being out of doors to stick to anything that
kept him in. I remember one Long Vacation he arranged a studio in one
of the barns, and declared he was going to work in deadly earnest; but
after a while the longing to be out became too strong to be resisted
and we heard no more of his career as an artist. No one ever had such
a love of nature and sunshine