ng with all her eyes down the lane, as if one of
the heroes of her history books had suddenly come to life. Then she
turned round and rushed back to the house and half-way up the stairs,
burning to tell her news. But there she stopped short suddenly, and
after a minute sat down on the stairs and dropped her chin in her
hands. There she sat without moving until the door of Godfrey's room
opened and Angelica came out. The two sisters sprang to meet each
other.

'Oh, Angel!' burst out Betty.

'Oh, Betty, I've done it!' and Angel sank down on the stairs, and hid
her face on her sister's shoulder.

'Have you whipped him?' asked Betty.

'Yes, I said I would, and I had to; you know what Martha said--he must
be able to depend on what we said. I whipped him and put him to bed.'

'Poor Angel, poor dear, how your hands are shaking. You couldn't have
hit him very hard.'

'I don't know; it seemed to me as if I did, and he is so little.'

'Did he cry?' asked Betty.

'Oh no, but he's so brave he wouldn't, not even if I really hurt him
dreadfully.'

The idea of slender, gentle Angelica doing bodily violence to any one
would have been amusing if the sisters had not been too serious to see
it.

'Penny met us on the stairs,' Angel went on, 'and she wanted to pet
him, and I wouldn't let her. I think she thought me very cruel, and if
she knew I'd whipped him----'

'Well, we ar'n't bringing up Godfrey to please Penny,' said Betty
decidedly, 'and really and truly, Angel dear, I expect you hurt
yourself more than you did him. Come down into the parlour, your
fingers are as cold as ice. I've got something to tell you, too.'

She put her arm round her sister's waist, and drew her downstairs,
telling the remarkable news about the strange gentleman as they went.
Angel could not but be interested.

'Captain Maitland,' she said, 'was it really? Do you know I hardly saw
him, I only had a sort of idea that there was a gentleman there. I
hope I was not very rude. I ought to have said something more to him.'

'But I did, Angel, so it doesn't matter. I offered him elder
wine--that was all right, wasn't it? But I was so glad when he said
no, for you know that little last piece of cake is getting stale, and
we don't bake till to-morrow, and Penny might have been cross about
getting the wine hot with all the mince-meat about.'

'Perhaps it was as well,' said Angelica rather abstractedly. 'How odd
it should have been Captai