description that she must have been Bridget Rosser."

"Oh, but surely not!"

"I think it was," Phoebe insisted.

"He has only seen her once," said Carrissima. "That was on Saturday
week. She would scarcely----"

"Let me ask you one question!" cried Lawrence.

"Oh, a dozen," said Carrissima.

"How do you know that was the only time he saw the woman?"

"Of course, I can't say that I know for certain," she admitted.

"There you are! You don't know. You don't even believe. You simply
jump to a conclusion. You have no means of knowing. Depend upon it,
he has been at Golfney Place over and over again. We shall be
fortunate if he doesn't end by marrying her."

"Who is jumping to a conclusion now?" said Carrissima.

"Lawrence dear," suggested Phoebe, quite humbly, "I understood you were
afraid she might marry Mark. After all, she can't very well make
victims of both him and your father."

"No, but she may like to have two strings to her bow. She may prefer a
bird in the hand, and if he should escape, there's Mark to fall back
upon."

"After all," said Carrissima, "you have not even seen Bridget. You
don't know she has the slightest desire to marry anybody."

"She is simply an adventuress," was the answer. "A pretty woman on the
make."

Although Carrissima had little reason to be prejudiced in Miss Rosser's
favour, she was the possessor of an elementary sense of justice, and,
moreover, it was always a satisfaction to contradict her brother.

"I don't admit you have any right to say that," she protested. "I saw
a great deal of her at Crowborough----"

"Five years ago!"

"From what I have seen since," Carrissima continued, "I believe you
have found a mare's nest. You seem to forget that father is
sixty-five."

"Ah, yes, but he doesn't begin to realize the fact," said Lawrence.
"He thinks he is quite capable of acting like an ordinary man of half
his age. If you had tried to provide your friend with an easy prey,
you couldn't have gone a surer way to work."

Carrissima, however, remained still unconvinced. She walked home to
Grandison Square with the inclination to scoff at her brother's fears,
although it was true that she was beginning to wish that Bridget had
never crossed Colonel Faversham's path.

CHAPTER VI

CONCERNING BIRTHDAYS

"Carrissima!" said Colonel Faversham, as he rose from the
breakfast-table a day or two after her conversation with Lawrence and
Phoebe.

"Yes,