ty, and would be only too ready to pardon it on the present
occasion, with Leo it was different.

Luckily she was nearer home than he was. Flying along as she was doing,
she might get in by a side door before the general stalked into the
dining-room, and he sincerely hoped she would. He watched till she was
out of sight. There was no one on earth whom Val disliked and feared as
much as Leo's father.

The latter could not indeed snub him and snap at him, as when he was a
boy--but it was almost worse to be looked at as though he were an
offensive object, and to be heard in sneering silence if he ventured
upon a remark. For all his witlessness Val, poor fellow, knew when he
was happy and comfortable and when he was not, and he did not need his
grandmother to tell him that he was no favourite with General Boldero.

"I only hope the old beast doesn't bully Leo," he muttered, as at last
he turned into the short cut, and all the way home he was sunk in
thought.

But he burst into Mrs. Purcell's presence hilariously. "I've had a jolly
good time, ma'am. Sorry to be late, but I was walking with Leonore."

"With Leonore? You really did?--how odd that you should happen to meet!"
The old lady, who had begun excitedly, checked herself, and assumed a
cheerful, every-day air. "You fell in with the sisters on the road, I
suppose?"

"Not the sisters. Only Leo. I ran into her in the middle of the village,
and she was awfully nice and friendly; so then we went off for a walk
together."

"How nice! Just the morning for a pleasant walk."

"Beastly wet and dirty underfoot though. Look at my boots"--and he
looked himself. "We got into a regular bog once."

"You left the high road? You should not have done that." (Delighted that
he had.)

"Went along the lane to Prickett's Green, and got into the woods there,"
said he, helping himself to cold pheasant, and looking about for
adjuncts. "I knew you wanted me to do the civil, so I told her I had
nothing else on hand, and we might as well have a good tramp. But we
didn't really get very far, though we pottered on and on, and she had to
skurry at the last to be home in time."

"Did you--did she--does Leo seem changed? Or did you find your old
playmate what she always was?"

"Should never have known she had been away. She doesn't look a day
older."

"But altered otherwise, perhaps? Marriage does sometimes--" and she
paused suggestively.

"Oh, hang it, yes; Leo's quite the married wo