consulted you, Edward, before he took such a step."

"Oh, he did," blurted out Rosalind. "But, as I told him, of course papa
not knowing what a villain he was, would believe all he said. It was
all the more shame of him to go and impose on papa, who hasn't had time
to get to know all the people about the place, instead of going to
Auntie or Mr Armstrong, who know all of them. I don't think he'll do
it again," said the young lady, firing up like a charming Amazon, at the
remembrance of her interview.

Captain Oliphant pushed his chair brusquely back from the table and got
up, looking, so Armstrong thought, not as proud of his loyal daughter as
he should have been.

"Eva," said he drily, "I shall be in the library if you want me. Will
you tell Raffles to bring me in the _Times_ when it arrives?"

"I'm afraid papa will be very angry with me," said Rosalind dolefully,
as she and Roger walked back across the hall. "But if he won't stand up
for himself some one must. I'm quite sure he would give the impression,
to any one who did not know him, that he had purposely been harsh to
poor Hodder."

As it happened, Captain Oliphant displayed no anger. The question of
Hodder was allowed to drop, and no further reference was made to his
threatened eviction. Mr Pottinger during the week meekly submitted an
agreement to permit him to remain where he was, which the trustees
sanctioned unanimously; and when the old man's champions at Maxfield
rejoiced in the discomfiture of the man of the law.

Captain Edward Oliphant said nothing in his defence.

After this matters went on quietly, as they will do when one storm has
blown over and the next is yet below the horizon. Armstrong settled
down to his duties with his two pupils--or rather his three pupils, for
Miss Jill made a point of receiving lessons too. Miss Rosalind worked
away at her painting, and succeeded in evoking a glimmering interest in
art in the Philistine breasts of her two students. The young people
divided their leisure between riding, cricket, tennis, and yachting.
Mrs Ingleton, as the weeks went by, not only grew more pale, but began
to be aware of the attentions of her sympathetic kinsman, and to be
sorely perplexed and disturbed thereat. And the Captain himself
received his Indian letters regularly by each mail, and confessed to
himself that, but for two considerations--one appertaining to love, the
other to hate--he had better far have remained in He