fered in a shrill treble.

"You had better run, Deena, if you don't want to be caught," and then
more giggling, and a quick rush across the hall.

Dicky threw open the hall door, and French, glancing up the stairs,
caught sight of a velvet train disappearing round the turn of the
first landing. He took the chances of making a blunder and called:

"Come down, Mrs. Ponsonby. It is I--Stephen French--and I have
something to say to you."

This was first received in silence, and then in piercing whispers, the
little sisters tried to inspire courage:

"Go down, Deena; you don't look a bit _funny_--really."

"'Funny'--ye gods!" thought French, as Deena turned and came slowly
down the stairs. He only wished she did look _funny_, or anything,
except the intoxicating, maddening contrast to her usual sober self
that was descending to him.

She was dressed in black velvet of a fashion evidently copied from a
picture, for the waist was prolonged over the hips in Van Dykes, and
from the shoulders and sleeves Venetian point turned back, displaying
the lovely neck and arms that Polly had so envied. Her hair was
loosely knotted at the back, and on her forehead were straying curls
which were seldom tolerated in the severity of her usual neatness. She
wore a collar of pearls, and her bodice was ornamented with two
sunbursts and a star.

French, who had never seen her in evening dress, was amazed. He seemed
to forget that he had asked speech with her, and stood gazing as if
she were an animated portrait whose exceeding merit left him dumb. He
was recalled alike to his senses and his manners by Dicky, who turned
a handspring over his sister's long train and then addressed Stephen,
when he found himself right-end up.

"I say, Mr. French, mustn't she have been sort of loony to wear a
dress like that, and she sixty-five?"

"Who?" asked French, completely mystified.

"Why, mother's cousin, Mrs. Beck. Didn't you know she had died and
left us things?" said Dicky, proudly. "A trunk full of clothes and
diamond ornaments came to-day, and mother wrote to Deena to unpack it,
and we persuaded her to dress up in this. Don't she look queer? That
Mrs. Beck must have been a dressy old girl."

Deena ignored the explanation. She appeared to treat her costume as a
usual and prosaic affair, and said to Stephen, almost coldly:

"You have something to tell me?"

He wondered whether his eyes had offended her, whether the stupidity
of his admirat