into a gluttonous
silence, and abide in it. Barbara's man of God is in a wholly different
pattern to mine. He is a macerated little saint, with the eyes of a
ferret and the heart of a mouse. As the courses pass by, in savory
order, I, myself unemployed, watch my sister gradually reassuring,
comforting, heartening him, as is her way with all weakly, maimed, and
unhandsome creatures. She has succeeded in thawing him into a thin
trickle of parochial talk, when mother bends her laced and feathered
head in distant signal from the table-top, and off we go. We drink
coffee, we drink tea, we pick clever little holes in our absent
neighbors, in brisk duet and tortuous solo we hammer the blameless
spinnet, we sing affecting songs about "fair doves," and "cleansing
fires," and people "far away," and still our deliverers come not. They
_must_ hear our appealing melodies clearly through the walls and doors,
but still they come not. Sunk in sloth and old port, still they come
not. I seem to have said every possible thing that is to be said on
every known subject to the young woman beside me, and now I am falling
asleep. I feel it. Lulled by the warm glow diffused through the room, by
the smell of the jonquils, lilies of the valley and daphnes, by the low
even talk, I am slipping into slumber. The door opens, and I jump into
wakefulness; Sir Roger to the rescue. I am afraid that I look at him
with something not unlike invitation in my eyes, for he makes straight
toward me.

"Wish me good-morning," say I, rubbing my eyes, "for I have been sweetly
asleep. I fell asleep wondering which of you would come first--somehow I
thought it would be you. Are you going to sit here? Oh! that is all
right!" as he subsides into the next division of the ottoman to mine.
"What have you been talking about?" I continue, with a contented, chatty
feeling, leaning my elbow on the blue-satin ottoman-top; "any thing
pleasant? Did not you hear our screams for help through the wall?"

"Have not we come in answer to them?"

Yes; they are all here now, at last; all, from father down to the
curates; some sitting resolutely down, some standing uncertainly up.
Barbara's _protege_, with frightened stealth, is edging round the
furniture to where she sits on a little chair alone. Barbara is
locketless, braceletless, chainless, head-dressless! such was our
unparalleled haste to abscond. Ornaments has she none but those that God
has given her: a sweep of blond hair, a