come and hold out the olive-branch in
so uncompromising a fashion.

Lady Fenimore then said that she had never wished to quarrel with
Maria, and Sir Anthony declared that her patriotic sentiments did her
credit, and that he was proud to receive her under his roof, and in a
few minutes Maria was drinking tea and discussing the war in the most
contented way in the world.

"I didn't write to you on the occasion of the death of your two
children because you knew I didn't like you," said this outspoken lady.
"I hate hypocrisy. Also I thought that tribulation might chasten you in
the eyes of the Lord. I've discussed it with our Minister, a poor body,
but a courageous man. He told me I was unchristian. Now, what with all
this universal massacre going on and my unregenerate longing, old woman
as I am, to wade knee-deep in German blood, I don't know what the devil
I am."

The more Anthony told me of Aunt Maria, the more I liked her.

"Can't I come round and make her acquaintance?" I cried. "She's the
sort of knotty, solid human thing that I should love. No wonder Althea
was fond of her."

"This happened a week ago. She only stayed a night," replied Sir
Anthony. "I wish to God we had never seen her or heard of her."

And then the good, heart-wrung little man, who had been beating about
the bush for half an hour, came straight to the point.

"You remember Althea's visit to Scotland in January last year?"

"Perfectly," said I.

He rose from his chair and looked at me in wrinkled anguish.

"She never went there," he said.

That was what he had come to tell me. A natural reference to the last
visit of Althea to her aunt had established the stupefying fact.

"Althea's last visit was in October, 1913," said Miss Beccles.

"But we have letters from your house to prove she was with you in
January," said Sir Anthony.

Most methodical and correspondence-docketing of men, he went to his
library and returned with a couple of letters.

The old lady looked them through grimly.

"Pretty vague. No details. Read 'em again, Anthony."

When he had done so, she said: "Well?"

Lady Fenimore objected: "But Althea did stay with you. She must have
stayed with you."

"All right, Edith," said Maria, sitting bolt upright. "Call me a liar,
and have done with it. I've come here at considerable dislocation of
myself and my principles, to bury the hatchet for the sake of unity
against the enemy, and this is how I'm treated. I can only g