villain, in tones of righteous indignation tempered by fear.

"It isn't true, sir," said Mr. Green, respectfully. "I didn't say
anything of the kind."

"Wot did you say, then?" enquired Captain Barber, in a voice which the
company thought far too mild for the occasion.

"She was standing at the door as I passed," said Mr. Green, nervously,
"and I asked her to go for a walk with me."

"Lawk-a-mussy me!" screamed the horrified Mrs. Banks.

"We went for a nice little stroll," continued the graceless Mr. Green,
"and then I s'pose she found it was later than she thought, and she
began to make a fuss."

"Me, at my time o' life?" demanded the indignant Mrs. Banks of the
audience.

"You _did_ make a fuss," said Mr. Green.

"O' course I made a fuss when I found out how I had been deceived. You
were here when he came, Mrs. Church, weren't you?"

"I would rather not say anything about it," said the housekeeper,
freezingly.

"I insist upon your speaking," said the old lady, getting very red in
the face.

"Well, I don't know much about it," said the housekeeper, looking round
appealingly. "I heard you speaking to somebody at the door in a low
voice."

"It wasn't a low voice," interrupted Mrs. Banks, sharply.

"Well, I couldn't hear what you were saying, and then when you went
outside and I asked you whether you were going home you said 'yes,'
didn't you?"

"Are you sure she said she was going home?" said Mrs. Banks's
brother-in-law, in an awful voice, as the old lady sank back in her
chair.

"Yes," said Mrs. Church, with a fine show of reluctance.

There was a dead silence, during which they all heard the smelling-salts
drop.

"If this man said Captain Barber was ill at Mapleden, why didn't you
tell me?" continued Mrs. Church, in a mildly aggrieved voice. "I think
if anybody ought to have known, it should have been me."

"It's all a fuss about nothing," said Mr. Green, brazenly. "She stayed
out a bit too late, and then wanted to put it all on to me."

A good Samaritan picked up the smelling-salts and held them to the
victim's nose, while her scandalized relatives discussed the situation
in hurried whispers. The brother-in-law eyed her with bewildered
disapproval, and in the disjointed accents peculiar to surprise was
heard to make use of the words "friskiness" and "gallivanting" and "old
enough to know better."

Her relatives' remarks, however, caused Mrs. Banks comparatively little
pain. Her attention wa