Big Doctor. "Isn't it
enough for him to bully us when we're sick, but he comes tormenting us
when we're well, too!"

Thus she appealed to her fellow-matrons, looking round upon them for
support with a festive eye.

"You'll none of you be well long, if you don't mind yourselves!"
answered, with equal spirit, the Doctor, with a quiet eye on his
daughter and her attendant swains.

"Why then I have a sore throat this minute with scolding Mr. Coppinger
for the nonsense he's talking!" declared Mrs. Whelply. "Asking me to
sing a cawmic at the concert he says he's going to have! There's no
fear but whatever _I_ sing will be cawmic enough!"

"I'm sure I'll have great pleasure in cauterising you!" responded the
Doctor, gallantly; "but if you'll take my advice now, you won't want
so much of it later on!"

"I thought you were going to take me on the river," said Tishy in a
low voice to Larry, looking resentfully at her father.

"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Larry, quickly; "much better than
the river--we'll go back to the house and dance! I'll fix it up with
your father!"

"Good egg!" said Sub-Lieut. Talbot-Lowry, with seaman-like decision,
"Miss Mangan will kindly note all waltzes are reserved for use of
naval officers!"

"Miss Mangan will kindly do no such thing!" returned that young lady,
dealing a flash from between her curled eyelashes that put the naval
officer temporarily out of action, so devastating was its effect.

Had not Frederica Coppinger, resting in her club in Dublin, after a
severe afternoon with her dentist, some intuition, some
spirit-warning, of what was befalling at the home of her ancestors? I
believe that those spear-thrusts of nerve-pain that assailed her just
before dinner, must have been the result of the wireless summons of
distress sent forth to her by her upper-housemaid.

"What next, I wonder, will Master Larry be asking for?" said the upper
housemaid to the cook. "The drawing-room carpet pitched into the
study, and Miss Coppinger's own room turned upside down for the
riff-raff of Cluhir to be powdering their noses in! 'Haven't she no
powder?' says they. 'No matter,' says the Doctor's daughter, 'sure I
have a book of it in me little bag!'"

"I wouldn't at all doubt her!" said the cook, saturninely, "But what's
the drawn'-room carpet to conjuring a supper out of me pocket in five
minutes? I ask you that, Eliza Hosford!"

None the less, with that deep loyalty to the honour of the ho