iving in? I positively couldn't ride
down upon the thing they offered me at the station. It wasn't even
_clean_. Look at it, my dear girls! It holds my respectable
belongings, and not me. It's the scarecrow or ghost of the ordinary
station-fly. Could you have imagined the station-fly could have a
ghost?"

"No," retorted Mabel, "being so scarecrowy and ghost-like already.
Please, driver, take Captain Bertram's things up to the house. He heard
you speak, Loftie. These Northbury people are as touchy as if they were
somebodies. Oh, Loftus, you will be disappointed. Mother has gone to
Manchester."

"To Manchester?" retorted Loftus. "My mother away from home! Did she
know that I was coming?"

"Yes," answered Kate, "I told her about your letter last night."

"Did you show her my letter?"

"No."

"Why didn't you? If she had read it she wouldn't have gone. I said I was
in a scrape. I was coming down on purpose to see the mater. You might
have sent me a wire to say she would not be at home, or you might have
kept her at home by showing her my letter. You certainly did not act
with discretion."

"I said you'd begin to scold the minute you came here, Loftie," remarked
Mabel. "It's a way you have. I told Kitty so. See, you have made poor
Kitty quite grave."

Loftus Bertram was a tall, slim, young fellow. He was well-made,
athletic, and neat in appearance, and had that upright carriage and
bearing which is most approved of in her Majesty's army. His face was
thin and dark; he had a look of Kate, but his eyes were neither so large
nor so full; his mouth was weak, not firm, and his expression wanted the
openness which characterized Catherine's features.

He was a selfish man, but he was not unkind or ill-natured. The news
which the girls gave him of their mother's absence undoubtedly worried
and annoyed him a good deal, but like most people who are popular, and
Loftus Bertram was undoubtedly very popular, he had the power of
instantly adapting himself to the exigencies of the moment.

He laughed lightly, therefore, at Mabel's words, put his arm round his
younger sister's unformed waist, and said, in a gay voice:

"I won't scold either of you any more until I have had something to
eat."

"We live very quietly at the Manor," remarked Mabel, "Mother wants to
save, you know. She says we must keep up our refinement at any cost, but
our meals are very--" she glanced with a gay laugh at Catherine.

"Oh, by Jove! I hope you d