.

"Ha!"

They proceeded some little way farther before Lady Casterley said
suddenly:

"She is deep."

"And dark," said Barbara. "I am afraid you were not good!"

Lady Casterley glanced upwards.

"I detest this habit," she said, "amongst you young people, of taking
nothing seriously. Not even bulls," she added, with a grim smile.

Barbara threw back her head and sighed.

"Nor 'flys,'" she said.

Lady Casterley saw that she had closed her eyes and opened her lips. And
she thought:

"She's a very beautiful girl. I had no idea she was so beautiful--but
too big!" And she added aloud:

"Shut your mouth! You will get one down!"

They spoke no more till they had entered the avenue; then Lady Casterley
said sharply:

"Who is this coming down the drive?"

"Mr. Courtier, I think."

"What does he mean by it, with that leg?"

"He is coming to talk to you, Granny."

Lady Casterley stopped short.

"You are a cat," she said; "a sly cat. Now mind, Babs, I won't have it!"

"No, darling," murmured Barbara; "you shan't have it--I'll take him off
your hands."

"What does your mother mean," stammered Lady Casterley, "letting you
grow up like this! You're as bad as she was at your age!"

"Worse!" said Barbara. "I dreamed last night that I could fly!"

"If you try that," said Lady Casterley grimly, "you'll soon come to
grief. Good-morning, sir; you ought to be in bed!"

Courtier raised his hat.

"Surely it is not for me to be where you are not!" And he added
gloomily: "The war scare's dead!"

"Ah!" said Lady Casterley: "your occupation's gone then. You'll go back
to London now, I suppose." Looking suddenly at Barbara she saw that the
girl's eyes were half-closed, and that she was smiling; it seemed to
Lady Casterley too or was it fancy?--that she shook her head.

CHAPTER XIII

Thanks to Lady Valleys, a patroness of birds, no owl was ever shot on
the Monkland Court estate, and those soft-flying spirits of the dusk
hooted and hunted, to the great benefit of all except the creeping
voles. By every farm, cottage, and field, they passed invisible,
quartering the dark air. Their voyages of discovery stretched up on to
the moor as far as the wild stone man, whose origin their wisdom perhaps
knew. Round Audrey Noel's cottage they were as thick as thieves, for
they had just there two habitations in a long, old, holly-grown
wall, and almost seemed to be guarding the mistress of that thatched
dwelling--so nume