canting generously upon their various perfections, gliding
dexterously over her reasons for wishing to be rid of them herself,
and concluding with the hint--either pregnant or barren of meaning as
he chose to take it--that if he made their stay pleasant to them, she
would not forget the service.

Then, as Mr. Landale began, with apparent guilelessness, to put a few
little telling questions to her anent the episodes which had made Bath
undesirable as a residence for these young paragons, the old lady
suddenly became overwhelmed with fatigue and sleepiness, and professed
herself ready to be conducted to her bower immediately.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, despite the _moue de circonstance_ which Molly thought it
incumbent on her to assume, neither she nor Madeleine regretted their
compulsory withdrawal from the social circle downstairs.

Madeleine had her own thoughts to follow up, and that these were both
engrossing and pleasant was easily evident; and Molly, bursting with a
sense of injury arising from many causes, desired a special
explanation with her sister, which the presence in and out upon them
of Tanty's woman had prevented her from indulging in before dinner.

"So here we are at last," cried she, indignantly, after she had walked
round and severely inspected her quarters, pausing to "pull a lip" of
extreme disfavour at the handsome portrait of Mr. Landale that hung
between the windows, "we are, Madeleine, at last, kidnapped,
imprisoned, successfully disposed of, in fact."

"Yes, here we are at last," echoed Madeleine, abstractedly, warming
her slender ankles by the fire.

"Have you made out yet what particular kind of new frenzy it was that
seized chere Tante?" asked Miss Molly, with great emphasis, as she sat
down at her toilet-table. "You are the cause of it all, my dear, and
so you ought to know. It is all very well for Tanty to pretend that I
have brought it on myself by not coming home till three o'clock (as if
that was _my_ fault). She cannot blink the fact that her Dempsey
creature had orders to pack my boxes before bedtime. Your Smith must
be a desperately dangerous individual. Well," she continued, looking
round over her shoulder, "why don't you say something, you
lackadaisical thing?"

But Madeleine answered nought and continued gazing, while only the
little smile, tilting the corners of her lips, betrayed that she had
heard the petulant speech.

The smile put the fin