you aren't all under the daisies! Is
Carmel _really_ lame? What about those fits? I came directly I read your
letter. A specialist must be sent for at once! I can't understand Miss
Walters taking it so lightly. We ought to have been told at once,
directly it happened."

As Everard poured forth these remarks, Dulcie's expression underwent
several quick changes, and passed from astonishment to sudden
comprehension and mirth.

"We're better, thanks!" she choked. "And Carmel can hobble about quite
well on her crutches, and her face isn't _very_ black now, not like it
was at first, though of course she still has the fits pretty regularly,
and the Doctor says----"

But at that moment her mendacious statement was contradicted by Carmel
herself, who came running over the lawn with an agility that put
crutches out of all question, and a complexion that was certainly in no
way spoilt.

It was Everard's turn to look amazed. He glanced in much perplexity from
his cousin, radiant and apparently in the best of health, to his sister,
who was almost speechless with laughter.

"You never actually _believed_ my letter about the rat poison?" exploded
Dulcie. "I explained that it was written for our literary evening. I
told you, Everard, I only sent it on for you to read because it sounded
so funny, and I was rather proud of it!"

"You told me nothing of the sort!"

"Oh, but I did indeed! Unless--" (suddenly sobering down), "unless I
forgot to put my other letter into the envelope, and only sent you the
rat-poison one! I was in such a hurry! Oh, good-night! Isn't it just
like me! Poor old Everard, I never meant to give you such a scare! I'm
frightfully sorry! Umpteen apologies!"

"Then is the whole business fiction?" demanded her brother, with knitted
brows.

"Oh, Everard, don't be angry!" implored Carmel. "Dulcie didn't mean to
rag you! We were having a jolly evening, and each of us had to write
something--the funnier the better--and that was Dulcie's contribution.
She said she was going to send it to you to make you laugh, but of
course she meant to put in her other letter to explain that this was
only nonsense. But Miss Hardy came in such a hurry, and whisked all our
letters off before we had time to read them over, or hardly to put them
in the right envelopes. So you know it was just an accident."

"I rode over at once to see what was the matter!"

Everard's voice still sounded offended, though slightly mollified.

"I