ad to be fixed at last. Oh, I've got the tip! It's
all open country now and I know just how to go. I've gone into it most
extensively; there's nothing you can't find out to-day--if you go to the
right place. I've--I've----' He hesitated a moment, then went on: 'Well,
it's no matter what I've done. I know where I am and it's a great
comfort. She's up a tree, if ever a woman was. Now we'll see who's a
beetle and who's a toad!' Lionel Berrington concluded, gaily, with some
incongruity of metaphor.

'It's not true--it's not true--it's not true,' Laura said, slowly.

'That's just what she'll say--though that's not the way she'll say it.
Oh, if she could get off by your saying it for her!--for you, my dear,
would be believed.'

'Get off--what do you mean?' the girl demanded, with a coldness she
failed to feel, for she was tingling all over with shame and rage.

'Why, what do you suppose I'm talking about? I'm going to haul her up
and to have it out.'

'You're going to make a scandal?'

'_Make_ it? Bless my soul, it isn't me! And I should think it was made
enough. I'm going to appeal to the laws of my country--that's what I'm
going to do. She pretends I'm stopped, whatever she does. But that's all
gammon--I ain't!'

'I understand--but you won't do anything so horrible,' said Laura, very
gently.

'Horrible as you please, but less so than going on in this way; I
haven't told you the fiftieth part--you will easily understand that I
can't. They are not nice things to say to a girl like you--especially
about Deepmere, if you didn't know it. But when they happen you've got
to look at them, haven't you? That's the way I look at it.'

'It's not true--it's not true--it's not true,' Laura Wing repeated, in
the same way, slowly shaking her head.

'Of course you stand up for your sister--but that's just what I wanted
to say to you, that you ought to have some pity for _me_ and some sense
of justice. Haven't I always been nice to you? Have you ever had so much
as a nasty word from me?'

This appeal touched the girl; she had eaten her brother-in-law's bread
for months, she had had the use of all the luxuries with which he was
surrounded, and to herself personally she had never known him anything
but good-natured. She made no direct response however; she only
said--'Be quiet, be quiet and leave her to me. I will answer for her.'

'Answer for her--what do you mean?'

'She shall be better--she shall be reasonable--there shall b