"

"I hope you are not hungry, Robinetta," said Mrs. de Tracy, "that you
have to buy food in Weston."

"No, indeed," said Robinette, "I was only longing to test Carnaby's
generosity and educate him in buying trifles for pretty ladies."

"He can probably be relied on to educate himself in that line when the
time comes," Mrs. de Tracy remarked; "and now if you have all finished
talking about hair, I will take up my breakfast again."

"Oh, Aunt de Tracy, I am so sorry if it wasn't a nice subject, but I
never thought. Anyway I only talked about hairpins; it was Mr.
Lavendar who introduced hair into the conversation; wasn't it, Middy
dear?"

Lavendar thought he could have annihilated them both for their open
comradeship, their obvious delight in each other's society. Was he to
be put on the shelf like a dry old bachelor? Not he! He would
circumvent them in some way or another, although the role of
gooseberry was new to him.

The two young people set off in high spirits, and Mrs. de Tracy and
Miss Smeardon watched them as they walked down the avenue on their way
to the station, their clasped hands swinging in a merry rhythm as they
hummed a bit of the last popular song.

"I hope Robinetta will not Americanize Carnaby," said Mrs. de Tracy.
"He seems so foolishly elated, so feverishly gay all at once. Her
manner is too informal; Carnaby requires constant repression."

"Perhaps his temperature has not returned to normal since his attack
of quinsy," Miss Smeardon observed, reassuringly.

Meanwhile Lavendar sat in Admiral de Tracy's old smoking room for half
an hour writing letters. Every time that he glanced up from his work,
and he did so pretty often, his eyes fell on a picture that hung upon
the opposite wall. It was the copy of Sir Joshua's "Robinetta" made
long ago and just presented to its namesake.

In the portrait the girl's hair was a still brighter gold; yet
certainly there was a likeness somewhere about it, he thought; partly
in the expression, partly in the broad low forehead, and the eyes that
looked as if they were seeing fairies.

Of course to his mind Mrs. Loring was a hundred times more lovely than
Sir Joshua's famous girl with a robin. He felt very ill-used because
Robinette and Carnaby had deliberately gone for an excursion without
him and had left him toiling over business papers when they had gone
off to enjoy themselves.

How bright it was out there in the sunshine, to be sure! And why
should