such unnecessary deceit, too. Neither your aunt Penelope nor I have any
objection to your borrowing a gun if you find such a dangerous weapon
needful to your happiness. But why not confide in us?"

"Is it possible she would not be really angry if she knew?" thinks
Monica, breathlessly. I regret to say that both Kit and Terence take
another view of Miss Blake's speech, and believe it an artful dodge to
extract confession.

"I--" says Terence, to gain time, and because speech of some kind at
this moment is absolutely necessary--"I didn't think----"

"Of _course_ you didn't think, Terence, or you would not have recorded
your poor aunts, in your secret thoughts, as hard-hearted and
ungenerous. If you had told us openly that Mitson, the coast-guard, had
lent you a gun (as I strongly suspect, and indeed felt sure from the
first moment was the case), we should not have been at all angry, only
naturally anxious that you should use an instrument of death with
caution. But you have no confidence in us, Terence."

Intense relief fills the breasts of the three Beresfords. Remorse that
the trusting nature of the old ladies should be so abused touches Monica
keenly, but of the other two I must again declare with grief that they
feel nothing but a sense of delivery from peril, and no contrition at
all for their past suspicions.

"I thought you might be angry, aunt," says Terence. He is looking very
dirty indeed, and his hands are grimy, and altogether even Monica cannot
bring herself to feel proud of him. There is, too, a covert desire for
laughter about him that exasperates her terribly.

"Not angry, my dear; only nervous. I hope you know how to load, and
that. I remember a cousin of ours blowing off his first finger and thumb
with a powder-horn."

"This is a breech-loader, auntie," says Monica, softly.

"Eh? One of those new-fangled things I have read of. Oh, well, my dear
boy, I daresay there is more need for circumspection. Let me look at it.
Ah! very handsome, indeed! I had no idea coast-guards were so well
supplied; and yet I cling to the old guns that your grandfather used to
use."

"Did you shoot anything?" asks Miss Penelope, who has grown quite
interested, and regards Terence with a glance of pride.

"Only one thrush," says Terence, drawing the dilapidated corpse from his
pocket, "and a sparrow, and one rabbit I fired at and wounded mortally,
I know, but it got away into its hole and I lost it."

"Rabbits!" sa