nd I! Some of the vagabonds will turn up this very evening, you'll
see if they don't. Ha, ha! The way they follow me!"

Mrs. Tanberry was irresistible: she filled the whole place otherwise
than by the mere material voluminousness of her; bubbling over with
froth of nonsense which flew through the house, driven by her energy,
like sea-foam on a spring gale; and the day, so discordantly begun for
Miss Betty, grew musical with her own laughter, answering the husky
staccato of the vivacious newcomer. Nelson waited upon them at table,
radiant, his smile like the keyboard of an ebony piano, and his
disappearances into the kitchen were accomplished by means of a
surreptitious double-shuffle, and followed by the cachinnating echoes
of the vain Mamie's reception of the visitor's sallies, which Nelson
hastily retailed in passing.

Nor was Mrs. Tanberry's prediction allowed to go unfulfilled regarding
the advent of those persons whom she had designated as vagabonds. It may
have been out of deference to Mr. Carewe's sense of decorum (or from
a cautious regard of what he was liable to do when he considered that
sense outraged) that the gallants of Rouen had placed themselves under
the severe restraint of allowing three days to elapse after their
introduction to Miss Carewe before they "paid their respects at the
house;" but, be that as it may, the dictator was now safely under way
down the Rouen River, and Mrs. Tanberry reigned in his stead. Thus,
at about eight o'clock that evening, the two ladies sat in the library
engaged in conversation--though, for the sake of accuracy, it should
be said that Mrs. Tanberry was engaged in conversation, Miss Betty in
giving ear--when their attention was arrested by sounds of a somewhat
musical nature from the lawn, which sounds were immediately identified
as emanating from a flute and violin.

Mrs. Tanberry bounded across the room like a public building caught by a
cyclone, and, dashing at the candles, "Blow 'em out, blow 'em out!" she
exclaimed, suiting the action to the word in a fluster of excitement.

"Why?" asked Miss Carewe, startled, as she rose to her feet. The candles
were out before the question.

"'Why!" repeated the merry, husky voice in the darkness. "My goodness,
child precious, those vagabonds are here! To think of your never having
been serenaded before!"

She drew the girl to the window and pointed to a group of dim figures
near the iliac bushes. "The dear, delightful vagab