ra's house we had taken on, as it were, her practice, and
the goodwill of her acquaintance. The Dean of Glengad and Mrs. Doherty
were the very apex and flower of the latter, and in the party now
installed in Aunt Dora's drawing-room I unhesitatingly recognised them,
and Mrs. Doherty's sister, Miss McEvoy. Miss McEvoy was an elderly lady
of the class usually described as being "not all there". The expression,
I imagine, implies a regret that there should not be more. As, however,
what there was of Miss McEvoy was chiefly remarkable for a monstrous
appetite and a marked penchant for young men, it seems to me mainly to
be regretted that there should be as much of her as there is.

A drive of nine miles in the heat of a June morning is not undertaken
without a sustaining expectation of luncheon at the end of it. There
were in the house three mutton chops to meet that expectation. I
communicated all these facts to my brother. The consternation of his
face, framed in raspberry boughs, was a picture not to be lightly
forgotten. At such a moment, with everything depending on sheer nerve
and resourcefulness, to consign Julia to perdition was mere
self-indulgence on his part, but I suppose it was inevitable. Here the
door into the garden opened and Julia came forth, with a spotless apron
and a face of elaborate unconcern. She picked a handful of parsley, her
black eyes questing for us among the bushes; they met mine, and a glance
more alive with conspiracy it has not been my lot to receive. She moved
desultorily towards us, gathering green gooseberries in her apron.

"I told them the two o' ye were out," she murmured to the gooseberry
bushes. "They axed when would ye be back. I said ye went to town on the
early thrain and wouldn't be back till night."

Decidedly Julia's conscience could stand alone.

"With that then," she continued, "Miss McEvoy lands into the hall, an'
'O Letitia,' says she, 'those must be the gentleman's fishing rods!' and
then 'Julia!' says she, 'could ye give us a bit o' lunch?' That one's
the imp!"

"Look here!" said Robert hoarsely, and with the swiftness of panic, "I'm
off! I'll get out over the back wall."

At this moment Miss McEvoy put her head out of the drawing-room window
and scanned the garden searchingly. Without another word we glided
through the raspberry arches like departing fairies in a pantomine. The
kindly lilac and laurestina bushes grew tall and thick at the end of
the garden; the wa