-night if I failed to tell you that. So is
everybody who dares treat an old man thus."

"Pardon me, Miss Oliphant, that is not quite respectful to your own
father."

She rounded on him with trembling lips.

"My father," she began and faltered--"my father is not the sort of man
to do a thing of this kind unless he were cajoled into it by some--
some--some one like you, Mr Pottinger--"

With which she left the room, much to the lawyer's relief, who tried to
laugh to himself at the pretty vixen, but couldn't be as merry as he
would have wished.

Rosalind, on her return to Maxfield, went straight with flashing eyes to
Roger's room, and told him the story.

"Roger," she said, "if you are half a man you will stop it. You are
master here, or will be. Are you going to let this poor old man be
turned out of his home? You are not the dear boy I take you for, if you
are."

"Of course it must be stopped," said Roger, amazed at her vehemence;
"and it shall be. I always thought Pottinger a sneak. I assure you,
Rosalind, I shall make poor old Hodder happy before we are a day older.
So good-bye; I'll go at once."

But he was no match for the lawyer, who politely recounted the
circumstances and referred him to his guardians, who, however, as he
pointed out, had no choice but to accept the best-paying tenant.

"It is done in your interest, my dear boy," said Mr Pottinger. "We are
bound to consider your interests, whether you like it or not."

Mortified beyond measure, both on his own account and at the prospect of
facing Rosalind, Roger returned slowly to Maxfield. As he entered, a
hand was laid on his shoulder; Mr Armstrong had come back.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

MR. ARMSTRONG PUTS DOWN HIS FOOT.

Mr Armstrong, as unconcerned as if he had just returned from a half-
hour's stroll, had little idea of the flutter which his return caused to
the Maxfield family. He could hardly know that Raffles was parading the
lower regions rubbing his hands, and informing his acquaintance down
there that the season for "larks" was coming on; nor, as he was out of
earshot, could he be supposed to know the particularly forcible
expressions which Captain Oliphant rehearsed to himself in celebration
of the occasion. As for the young people, it did afford him a passing
gratification to feel his pupil's arm linked once more in his own, and
to encounter the expected boisterous welcome from Tom and Jill. Miss
Rosalind was busy, forsooth! a