hen she and Mr. Mustard would put them up together. There was no
use troubling Elizabeth. She had her own domestic duties to attend to.
Of course, she, that is Elsie, would partake with them of their simple
and frugal midday meal? It would be more convenient for all
parties--better than going all the way back to the cottage at the
Bridge End. Besides, Miss Edgar would doubtless be absent, and no
dinner would be ready. Yes (concluded Mr. Mustard), on all accounts it
would be much preferable to dine together. He had talked it over with
his sister the night before.

I could see her hesitate. But the arrangement was really so much more
convenient--indeed obvious, that Elsie, after provising that she would
have to arrange terms with Miss Elizabeth, ended by accepting.

I began to hate Mr. Mustard.

What could he be after? It could not be love--fancy that red-nosed,
blear-eyed, baldish old badger with the twitchy eyebrows in love! I
laughed on my branch. But whatever it was his sister was in it. Yes,
Betty Martin was a confederate--yet her brother's marriage would
(conceiving for a moment such a thing to be possible) put her out of a
place.

It was altogether beyond me. Only as I say, I did not love Mr. Mustard
any the better for all this, and if I could have pinked him cheerfully
with my catapult, without the risk of hitting Elsie, he would have got
something particularly stinging for himself.

CHAPTER XVII

DREAR-NIGHTED DECEMBER

Then happened that event which in an hour, as it were, made a man out
of a rather foolish boy. The postman comes twice to our doors during
the day with letters--once for those from the neighbourhood of
Breckonside, once for the mails that come in from London and all the
countries of the world. Not that there were many of these, save now
and then one or two for my father, about hams and flour. I used to
annex the stamps, of course--generally from the United States they
were, but once in a while from France.

One dullish December morning, in the early part of the month, my father
got a letter which seemed to cause him some annoyance. He did not
usually refer to his correspondence. But I was standing near him--for
after all, on account of certain business reasons, I had not yet gone
to Edinburgh--and I heard him mutter, "I suppose I had better go to
Longtown Tryst, or I may never see my money. Still, it is a nuisance.
I wish old----"

Here he broke off suddenly, an