notice of me, and that reluctantly, because I insisted on it." "Oh, you insisted?"

66

Well, yes. It isn't amusing to be in the same house with a great big man who takes no notice of you. And when he's a very dignified man, you feel naturally inclined to upset his dignity, and so I did. I startled him, in fact, considerably."

"I wish you'd startle me, Joey."

"Couldn't. You have no dignity to be upset. You're just a pal of mine, and very useful too. But you haven't told me yet what it is that Bill has done ? "

"Oh, just turned rancher out in Alberta, and says he's never coming home no more."

66 Alberta. That's in California, isn't it?"

"Why, you cuckoo- !" 66 Oh no, of course, it's in Calgary. I mean, Calgary is the capital of Alberta. Now I know, because that was where they met the Hardings for the delivery of Patsy.'

"You really ought to learn some geography, Joey. You're not too old, if you begin at once."

"It would make me old. And besides, there's no necessity, for I shall know all about it, and more than I want to, before very long."

"Oh Lord! You aren't going to start on that crazy journey, with that crazy woman, after all'

"You really ought to learn some discretion in speaking, Tom. You're rather old, but it's never too late to mend."

"Quite the middle, or a bit farther. Highly temerarious business, anyway. I suppose Mrs Trent wouldn't consider the rebuilding of her house sufficiently important to detain her to look after it?

"We've gone into all that. She thinks it so important that she has put off everything, except making the roof water-tight, until after we get back."

"Oh well, that ought to hasten her return a bit. That shows some gleams of judg ment. But what will you do about your horses?"

"No sentiment for this child!"

Another month went by, and still there was no sign of

It is rather curious the way people will demand sentiment of a woman, even when you tell them you can't supply it. Tom would have liked me to say, "Oh no! I can't sell Redwing, she is such a pet!" and to kiss her warm silken neck, or something equally silly.

I wasn't built that way; and if I had been, living with Hilda would be enough to cure any one of sentimentality. She was capable of getting up an emotion about anything under the sun; but then she would act quite cruelly sometimes, and never see it, especially when the object of her sentimentality disappointed her. I suppose deposed idols have about the worst time of anybody in the world. Fortunately, she had never been very fond of me, so we got along all the better, without jars and misunderstandings.

Also I thought it much to her credit that she did not resent David's legacy to me. Of course she was a rich woman, and would not actually miss five hundred a year from her fortune of about five thousand. But in my experience, it is the rich people who are by far the most tenacious of their money. They may fling it about themselves when it pleases them to do so; but they usually like to keep other people quite safe from any temptation to extravagance.

ject. She grew rather more quiet, and began to attend to matters about the house, and made plans for the garden. She seemed to expect me to go with her to Canada as a matter of course, and, to my great relief, spoke quite calmly about Nurse Evans going away, now that she was stronger. To achieve that separation I would have gone much farther than to Canada-if you can go any farther.

But Nurse Evans suddenly developed unexpected anxiety about my health. I had a cold, the sort of cold any one gets once a year; and she inquired very persistently about it, and advised several drastic remedies. Finally, she confided to Hilda that she did not like the sound of that cough; it was a queer cough, to say the least of it, and very few people realised how dangerous things were in their beginnings, also how infectious. Now, if it should prove to be anything of a tubercular nature, there was no saying how quickly a person of Hilda's susceptible constitution might be affected. Not that she would pronounce Miss Courtenay to be actually consumptive. Oh, no! But still

This was the only mistake in tactics that I ever knew that intelligent woman to make. Hilda got uneasy at once, as she was intended to do, but she announced in consequence that we would all go up to

London without delay, so that Nurse Evans should return to her duties, I should see the best and only doctor, and she herself should go a-shopping. We went accordingly, and de

CHAPTER VI.

Twenty-four hours change of air took away my cold completely, so that I managed to evade the interview with the doctor, and Hilda had the pleasure of seeing him herself instead.

This over, she began a serious round of shopping, for the very idea of Canada without new furs and a whole lot of extraordinary clothing was impossible to contemplate. My own shopping was finished in a morning, and consisted of some woollies and a Burberry suit. With these I escaped contentedly, and got back to Kent by the afternoon train.

It may have been a tiny bit unsympathetic, but you see it really was an excellent thing for Hilda to look after herself, and find that she could exist unsupported for a week. Besides, there was a Meet of the hounds quite near home next day, and of course I wanted to go out.

I had no idea, though, how pleasant the getting back would be. That Kentish country is attractive, and certainly the Red House was attractive, though I think it's a mistake to get bound to any house. I rode the grey next day, and he was as fresh as paint and good as gold. Even Joan

posited the good woman at the door of her most respectable lodgings, which she entered with a melancholy farewell to Hilda, and a bitter glance at me.

TOM MILBANKE.

Oliphant said he had improved in every way, which was very nice of her. I was in the first flight all day, and rode home in the dusk in a heavenly frame of mind, and with only one harmless scratch on the cob.

He

Simpson had a glorious woodfire, and tea and a mound of buttered toast all prepared for me in the little oak-room. never entered David's smokingroom after dark if he could possibly help it, and of course I didn't ask him to. I sat in the oak-room that evening, thinking how jolly the world was to live in, how well the cob had gone, and how nice it was of Connie to insist on my going over to stay at Winderleigh till Hilda got back.

She came herself to fetch me next morning, and was good enough to say I had managed very well about about separating Hilda from her too solicitous nurse. I hadn't, of course. But the thing had managed itself, as things usually do if you take a little trouble to prepare the way for them.

"It's all plain sailing now," I said. "We sail across the sea, and we sail home again; only what we shall do on the dry cold land in between the sailings I really don't clearly see yet."

"Oh, you can decide as you go along. It's only waste of time to decide too much beforehand. The great thing is to bring her home again as soon as possible," Connie advised, cheerfully evading the crux of the whole situation.

She left me to Tom, as usual, and went off to her fowl-yard, where she wasted at least an hour every morning, collecting eggs, and criticising the Orpingtons, and changing their food. She never tired of this, or of pruning the shrubs and instructing the gardener, who knew a great deal more than she did.

Connie was a dear. Every thing she had to do was a pleasure, and a privilege, and a perpetual source of content. No wonder she was adored! I think she would have gone through life singing, only mercifully she had no voice, except a very pleasant speaking voice, exactly like her brother's.

He rather resembled her in some other ways, but his natural cheerfulness varied with his health, which had been badly damaged in the Great War. It wasn't shell-shock, fortunately, but wounds and gas. He told me about it one day, and I gave him the best advice I could. I felt very sorry for him when he said, with the tears almost in his eyes, that he feared his riding nerve had gone for good. I had noticed that, of course; but I pretended I hadn't, and said it must be his own imagination. "Perhaps it is," he admitted

VOL. CCXV.-NO. MCCCII.

"But will you come, Joey!" "I wish you would ask me something else. I really would like so much to help you, Tom."

"It's the only thing I can think of. I haven't a brilliant imagination. If you come, you'll be making a poor bargain, which I should be the last to deny."

"No, no! I can't have it put that way. Don't undervalue yourself."

"Look here, Joey, if I don't use any flowery language to you about undying devotion, and so on, that's becausewell, I've used language like that before, and don't care to remember it. Of course I'll tell you all about the former occasion if you like."

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