nd these things," said Mrs.
Dangerfield; and she sighed.

"I do understand Basters," said Sir Maurice in a confident tone.

Mrs. Dangerfield ran up-stairs to dress, on the light feet of a girl; a
weight oppressive, indeed, had been lifted from her spirit.

Dinner was a very bright and lively meal, though now and again a grave
thoughtfulness clouded the spirits of Erebus. Once Sir Maurice asked
her the cause of it. She only shook her head.

Captain Baster ate his dinner in a sizzling excitement: he knew that he
had made a splendid first impression; he was burning to deepen it. But
on his eager way back to Colet House, he walked warily, feeling before
him with his stick for clotheslines. He came out of the dark lane into
the broad turf road, which runs across the common to the house, with a
strong sense of relief and became once more his hearty care-free self.

There was not enough light to display the jaunty air with which he
walked in all its perfection; but there seemed to be light enough for
more serious matters, for a stone struck him on the thigh with
considerable force. He had barely finished the jump of pained surprise
with which he greeted it, when another stone whizzed viciously past his
head; then a third struck him on the shoulder.

With the appalling roar of a bull of Bashan the gallant officer dashed
in the direction whence, he judged, the stones came. He was just in
time to stop a singularly hard stone with his marble brow. Then he
found a gorse-bush (by tripping over a root) a gorse-bush which seemed
unwilling to release him from its stimulating, not to say prickly,
embrace. As he wallowed in it another stone found him, his ankle-bone.

He wrenched himself from the embrace of the gorse-bush, found his feet
and realized that there was only one thing to do. He tore along the
turf road to Colet House as hard as he could pelt. A stone struck the
garden gate as he opened it. He did not pause to ring; he opened the
front door, plunged heavily across the hall into the drawing-room. The
Terror formed the center of a domestic scene; he was playing draughts
with his Uncle Maurice.

Captain Baster glared at him with unbelieving eyes and gasped: "I--I
made sure it was that young whelp!"

This sudden violent entry of a bold but disheveled hussar produced a
natural confusion; Mrs. Dangerfield, Sir Maurice and the Terror sprang
to their feet, asking with one voice what had befallen him.

Captain Ba