ned out of it to make room for an alien, resuscitated from the
supposed dead.

Sailors tell us that the rats desert a sinking ship. Pseudo friends
desert a falling house. You may revel in these friends in prosperity,
but when adversity sets in, how they fall away! On the very day that
John Massingbird arrived at Verner's Pride, and it became known that not
he, but Mrs. and Mr. Verner must leave it, the gay company gathered
there dispersed. Dispersed with polite phrases, which went for nothing.
They were so very sorry for the calamity, for Mr. and Mrs. Verner; if
they could do anything to serve them they had only to be commanded. And
then they left; never perhaps to meet again, even as acquaintances. It
may be asked, what could they do? They could not invite them to a
permanent home; saddle themselves with a charge of that sort; neither
would such an invitation stand a chance of acceptance. It did not appear
they could do anything; but their combined flight from the house, one
after the other, did strike with a chill of mortification upon the
nerves of Lionel Verner and his wife.

His wife! Ah, poor Lionel had enough upon his hands, looking on one side
and another. _She_ was the heaviest weight. Lionel had thanked God in
his true heart that they had been spared the return of Frederick
Massingbird; but there was little doubt that the return of Frederick
would have been regarded by her as a light calamity, in comparison with
this. She made no secret of it. Ten times a day had Lionel to curb his
outraged feelings, and compress his lips to stop the retort that would
rise bubbling up within them. She would openly lament that it was not
Frederick who had returned, in which case she might have remained at
Verner's Pride!

"You'll not turn them out, Massingbird?" cried Jan, in his
straightforward way, drawing the gentleman into the fruit-garden to a
private conference. "_I_ wouldn't."

John Massingbird laughed good-humouredly. He had been in the sunniest
humour throughout; had made his first appearance at Verner's Pride in
bursts of laughter, heartily grasping the hands of Lionel, of Sibylla,
and boasting of the "fun" he had had in playing the ghost. Captain
Cannonby, the only one of the guests who remained, grew charmed with
John, and stated his private opinion in the ear of Lionel Verner that he
was worth a hundred such as Frederick.

"How can I help turning them out?" answered he. "_I_ didn't make the
will--it was old D