g hard
blood or hurting anybody. Then old Tip and Calthea will come together
again, and everything will be jolly. Now don't you go and blast the
happiness of all of us, and get that poor girl turned off like a drunken
cook. And as for taking good care of the baby, just look at her now."

Lodloe looked out of the window. Ida Mayberry was leaning forward on the
bench, twirling a great yellow flower before the child, who was laughing
and making snatches at it. In a moment appeared Mr. Tippengray with a
large white daisy; he leaned over the other side of the carriage and
twirled his flower in front of the baby. The little fellow was in great
glee, first clutching at one blossom and then at the other, and Mr.
Tippengray laughed, and Miss Mayberry laughed, and the three laughed
together.

"Confound it!" said Lanigan Beam, with a frown, "this thing must be
stopped."

Lodloe smiled. "Work matters your own way," he said; "I shall not
interfere."

An hour later when Calthea Rose and Mrs. Cristie returned from Romney,
Ida Mayberry was walking by the side of the baby-carriage, which Lanigan
Beam was pushing towards the spot from which there was the best view of
the western sky.

[Illustration: "HE LEANED OVER THE OTHER SIDE OF THE CARRIAGE."]

Mrs. Cristie looked at them, and said to herself:

"I don't altogether like that sort of thing, and I think it must be
stopped."

Calthea Rose appeared to have recovered her good humor. She looked about
her apparently satisfied with the world and its ways, and readily
accepted Mrs. Petter's invitation to stay to tea.

XVI

MESSRS. BEAM AND LODLOE DECLINE TO WAIT FOR THE SECOND TABLE

As has been before mentioned, Walter Lodloe had grown into a condition
of mind which made it unpleasant for him when people took Mrs. Cristie
away or occupied her time and attention to the exclusion of his
occupancy of the same. As a literary man he had taken an interest in
studying the character of Mrs. Cristie, and he had now come to like the
character even better than he liked the study.

A pretty woman, of a lively and independent disposition, and quick wit,
and yet with certain matronly and practical points in her character
which always surprised as well as pleased him when they showed
themselves, Mrs. Cristie could not fail to charm such a man as Lodloe,
if the two remained long enough together. She had charmed him, and he
knew it and liked it, and was naturally anxious to know wheth