ng at the kennels when he had
kissed her wrist. That had been the left wrist. The kiss had meant
more to her than it had to him. Now, as she met his eyes she knew that
she and he stood on level ground.

Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel? Those even, who pin it down, and
set it up in a glass case in the cause of science and for the
edification of an inquisitive public, are not wholly to be commended,
praiseworthy though their intentions may be. Let a rule of silence,
therefore be observed, as far as may be. What this boy and girl said
to each other, is their secret, not ours.

The gorse in the high paddock held a fox; several, in fact, a lady
having reared a fine young family there without any anxieties as to
their support, thanks to the votive offerings of crows and rabbits,
obsequiously laid on her doorstep, by her best friend, and her most
implacable enemy, Mr. William Kirby, M.F.H. In recognition, no doubt,
of these attentions, the lady in question permitted one of her sons to
afford a little harmless pleasure to her benefactor, and this, having
included a lively gallop of some three miles, ceased in a plantation
where was the place of safety that had been indicated to the beginner,
and ceased appositely, at an hour that made a late breakfast at Castle
Ire a matter obvious, even imperative, for those who were not prepared
to await, in patient starvation, that very inferior repast, an early
lunch.

Young Mrs. Kirby had not lost, with matrimony, the habit of having her
own way.

"No, Christian, you're not going home. You haven't seen Baby, and he
really looks _rather_ sweet in his new--" (a negligible matter,
whatever the attire the formulae being unvaried)--"and, besides,"
continued young Mrs. Kirby, with decision, "I want to talk to you."

Being talked to by Judith was an adequate modern equivalent for an
interview with the "Jailer's Daughter," as a method of obtaining
information.

Christian trembled for the secret of the pearl.

"Bill tells me," began Judith, after the late breakfast had been
disposed of, settling herself luxuriously in an armchair in the round
tower-room which she had made her own sitting-room and lighting a
cigarette, "that our tenants--I mean Papa's people--are getting rather
nasty. Of course, there was that disgraceful business when your mare
was killed but I don't mean that--Bill thinks old Fairfax was right in
advising Papa to do nothing about that--but about this archaic
nonsense