marvellously polite, and
has, I think, quite a superior air."

"Quite," says Penelope, "and a very sweet expression besides,--so open,
so ingenuous. I wish _all_ were like him." This with a sigh, Terence
having proved himself open to suspicion with regard to plain dealing
during the past few days.

Now, it so happens that at this instant they turn a corner leading from
the shrubbery walk on to the gravel sweep before the hall door; as they
turn this corner, so does some one else, only _he_ is coming from the
gravel sweep to the walk, so that consequently he is face to face with
the Misses Blake without any hope of retreat.

The walk is narrow at the entrance to it, and as the newcomer essays to
pass hurriedly by Miss Priscilla he finds himself fatally entangled with
her, she having gone to the right as he went to the left, and afterwards
having gone to the left as he went to the right, and so on.

Finally a passage is cleared, and the stranger--who is an amazingly ugly
old man, with a rather benign though choleric countenance--speeds past
the Misses Blake like a flash of lightning, and with a haste creditable
to his years, but suggestive rather of fear than elasticity.

"My uncle?" says Brian Desmond, in an awestruck tone, to Monica, who
literally goes down before the terrible annunciation, and trembles
visibly.

It is a rencontre fraught with mortal horror to the Misses Blake. For
years they have not so much as looked upon their enemy's face, and now
their skirts have actually brushed him as he passed.

"Come, come quickly, Monica," says Miss Penelope, on this occasion being
the one to take the initiative. "Do not linger, child. Do you not see?
It was _our enemy_ that passed by."

If she had said "it was the arch fiend," her voice could not have been
more tragic.

"I am coming, Aunt Penny," says Monica, nervously.

Now, it is at this inauspicious moment that Mr. Kelly (who, as I have
said before, is always everywhere) chooses to rush up to Brian Desmond
and address him in a loud tone.

"My dear boy, you are not going yet, are you?" he says reproachfully. "I
say, Desmond, you can't, you know, because Miss Fitzgerald says you
promised to play in the next match with her."

The fatal name had been uttered clearly and distinctly. As though
petrified the two old ladies, stand quite still and stare at Brian; then
Miss Priscilla, with a stately movement, gets between him and Monica,
and, in tones that tremble pe