ing to be afraid . . .
But thank Heaven you're here! You very nearly spoiled everything,
but there's still time. Come in."

She led the way into her bedchamber, and without acknowledging Sally's
murmur of startled apology, waved an impetuous hand at her.

"Quick!" she demanded. "Get out of that costume at once!"

Her maid was already at Sally's side, fumbling with pins and hooks,
before the girl recovered from her astonishment sufficiently to seek
enlightenment.

"But what's the matter? What have I done? What--?"

"Nothing much--merely almost upset the applecart for me!" Mrs. Gosnold
laughed in grim humour, her own fingers busily aiding the maid's.
"Come, step out of that skirt, please. If you'd been two minutes
later . . . I'm simply going to pretend I'm you for ten minutes or
so," she explained, lowering the shimmering gray Quaker skirt over her
own shoulders. "I'm going to meet Walter Savage in your stead."

"But--"

"But me no buts. I heard enough there at the window, before you came
on the scene, to make me very suspicious of that young rascal, even
more so than I had every right to be from what you had told me. Now I
mean to learn the rest, find out precisely what devilment he's up to."

"He only wants to tell me--"

"There's nothing he can possibly have to say to you that he couldn't
have said a hundred times tonight in as many corners of the house and
grounds without a soul hearing a word or thinking it odd that two
young people should be exchanging confidences--and both of you masked
into the bargain."

Sally, now entirely divested of her masquerade, resignedly shrugged
herself into the black silk cloak for lack of a better negligee.

"I don't understand what you can suspect," she said dubiously.

"I don't suspect anything; but I'm going to find out everything."

"But aren't you afraid--"

"Of what, pray'?" Mrs. Gosnold demanded with appropriate asperity.

"I mean, don't you think he'll know?"

"Nothing in the shadow of those trees, with my mask and that cape to
disguise the fact that I'm a bit more matronly than yourself--worse
luck!"

"But your voice--"

"Haven't you ever read about 'guarded accents' in novels? Those will
be mine, precisely, when I talk to my graceless nephew. I shan't speak
once above a whisper--and I defy any man to tell my whisper from yours
or any other woman's for that matter. Don't flatter yourself, my dear!
I shall fool him perfectly; there's precious little to c