e recognized a not remote
kinship with people who had sense enough to come here to be out of the
way, and he said as much to his own mate who was lying lazily curled in
a big nest high up the bole of the pine which overtopped the white
marble roof of the little chapel and looked clear away to sea and back
to the towers of Castle Raincy.

"Patsy," said Louis, "they are going to separate us--I am sure of it.
That was why your Uncle Julian came all the way from London."

"Well, let them," said Patsy, swinging her feet and poking at the grass
with a branch she had stripped of willow leaves; "I suppose that even if
you are at the castle and I at Cairn Ferris we can always come here or
meet at the alder grove--why, there are a thousand places."

"Ah, but," said Louis, "I am to go into the army--and you are to go to
London, to be taken care of by some great lady whom your Uncle knows!"

Patsy clapped her hands with sudden pleasure.

"Oh, that must be the Princess--Uncle Ju's princess--then I shall know
her. It will be such fun!"

"No doubt--for you," said Louis, bitterly, "but since you are so glad to
be away from me and with other people, you will the more easily forget
all about me."

"Nonsense," said Patsy, "our people won't lock us in dungeons and feed
us on bread and water. They don't do it now-a-days. And so will you like
to go soldiering. Why, haven't you been moaning to me every day for
years because your grandfather would not let you go to be an officer and
see the world and fight? You owned that it was fun stopping the carriage
and getting me out and riding home--"

"Oh, yes," said Louis, "I do not deny it a bit. I own I said so, but
even there it was Stair Garland who had most to do with the real
business."

"Well, you must own that he played the game pretty straight."

"Umph," growled Louis, "of course. So would any one!"

"Now, Louis," said Patsy, "don't be a hog. You know you have often said
that Stair Garland was as good a gentleman as anybody. Of course, he is
fond of me--"

"Has he told you?" cried Louis, starting up and glowering with clenched
fists.

"What is that to you, sir?" Patsy retorted, biting her upper lip, while
her black eyes shrank to glittering dots under the long lashes through
which she considered the speaker. "Attend to your own business, Louis
Raincy. It is no business of yours what Stair Garland has said to me, or
what he may say!"

"But it is--it is!" cried Louis, shameles