a hare, and the quarry easily escaped
into the next paddock, after a merry run. Norah pulled up, her eyes
dancing.

"Don't you know it's useless to try to get a hare with those fellows?"
asked Mr. Linton, checking the reeking Monarch, and indicating with a
nod the dogs, which were highly aggrieved at their defeat.

"But I never wanted to get it," said his daughter, in surprise. "It's
perfectly awful to get a hare; they cry just like a baby, and it makes
you feel horrid."

"Then why did you go after it?"

"Why?" asked Norah, opening her eyes. "Well, I knew the dogs couldn't
catch it--and I believe you wanted a gallop nearly as much as I did,
Daddy!" They laughed at each other, and let the impatient horses have
their heads across the cleared paddock to the homestead.

There a letter awaited them.

Norah, coming in to dinner in a white frock, with her curls unusually
tidy, found her father looking anything but pleased over a closely
covered sheet of thin notepaper.

"I wish to goodness women would write legibly," he said, with some
heat. "No one on earth has any right to write on both sides of paper as
thin as this--and then across it! No one but your Aunt Eva would do
it--she always had a passion for small economies, together with one for
large extravagances. Amazing woman! Well, I can't read half of it, but
what she wants is unhappily clear."

"She isn't coming here, Daddy?"

"Saints forbid!" ejaculated Mr. Linton, who had a lively dread of his
sister--a lady of much social eminence, who disapproved strongly of his
upbringing of Norah. "No, she doesn't mention such an extreme course,
but there's something almost as alarming. She wants to send Cecil here
for Christmas."

"Cecil! Oh, Daddy!" Norah's tone was eloquent.

"Says he's been ill," said her father, glancing at the letter in a vain
effort to decipher a message written along one edge. "He's better, but
needs change, and she seems to think Billabong will prove a
sanatorium." He looked at Norah with an expression of dismay that was
comical. "I shouldn't have thought we'd agree with that young man a
bit, Norah!"

"I've never seen him, of course," Norah said unhappily, "but Jim says
he's pretty awful. And you didn't like him yourself, did you, Daddy?"

"On the rare occasions that I've had the pleasure of meeting my nephew
I've always thought him an unlicked cub," Mr. Linton answered. "Of
course it's eighteen months since I saw him; possibly he may have