erhanging the
tennis-court; and he said so, pretty decidedly. Almost anything else he
was willing to do, he added, but that particular thing he would not do
at all.

"As you please, Uncle Hutchinson," Dorothy answered, in a tone of gloomy
resignation. "I am used to hearing that. It is just what poor dear mamma
used to say. She always was willing, you know, to do everything but
the thing that I wanted her to do. I remember, just to mention a single
instance, how mamma broke up a delightful water party on Windermere that
Sir Gordon Graham had arranged expressly for us. The weather was rather
misty, as it is apt to be up there, you know, but nothing worth minding
when you are well wrapped up. But mamma said that if she went out in
such a drizzle she knew her cough would be ever so much worse--and of
course she couldn't really know that it would be worse, for nobody truly
knows what the weather is going to do to them--and so she wouldn't
go. And Sir Gordon was very much hurt about it, and never came near
us again. And unless I'm very much mistaken, Uncle Hutchinson, mamma's
selfishness that day lost me the chance of being Lady Graham. So I'm
used to being treated in this way, and you needn't at all mind refusing
me everything that I ask." And, being delivered of this discourse, Miss
Lee lapsed into a condition of funereal gloom.

At the end of another twenty-four hours Mr. Port knuckled under. "I
have been thinking, Dorothy," he said, "about what you were saying about
tennis. It's a beastly game, but since you insist upon seeing it I'll
take you for a little while this afternoon." This was not the most
gracious form of words in which an invitation could be couched; but
Dorothy, who was not a stickler for forms provided she was successful in
results, accepted it with alacrity. Later in the day, as they returned
from the Casino, she declared:

"Your angel has had a lovely afternoon, Uncle Hutchinson, and she is
sure that you have had a lovely afternoon too. And now that you've found
what fun there is in looking at tennis, we'll go every day, won't we,
dear? Sometimes, you know, you are just a little, just a very little
prejudiced about things; but you are so good and sweet-tempered that
your prejudices never last long, and so your angel cannot help loving
you a great deal."

Mr. Port, who was not at all sweet-tempered at that moment, was prepared
to reply to the first half of this speech in terms of some emphasis;
for he