are to put up with a pink-eyed parson,
and a hum-drum life," said Julius, holding out a caressing hand.

"Now that's hard," pleaded she; "only because I took a frolic with
Baby Charles! I say, Julius, shall we give it up altogether and
stay at home like good children? I believe that is what would suit
the told Rabbit much better than his kid gloves,"--and her sweet
face looked up at him with a meek candid gaze.

"No," he said, "that would not do. The Bowaters are our oldest
friends. But, Rosie, as you _are_ a clergyman's wife, could you not
give up round dances?"

"Oh no, no! That's too bad. I'd rather never go to a dance at all,
than sit still, or be elbowed about in the square dances. You never
told me you expected that!"--and her tones were of a child petulant
at injustice.

"Suppose," he said, as a delightful solution, "you only gratified
Frank and Charlie by waltzing with them."

She burst into a ringing laugh. "My brothers-in-law! How very
ridiculous! Suppose you included the curates?"

"You know what I mean," he said gravely.

"Oh, bother the parson's wife! Haven't I seen them figuring away by
scores? Did we ever have a regimental ball that they were not the
keenest after?"

"So they get themselves talked of!" said Julius, as Anne's quiet
entrance broke up the dialogue.

Mrs. Poynsett had listened, glad there was no appeal to her,
conscious that she did not understand the merits of the case, and
while she doubted whether her eldest son had love enough, somewhat
afraid lest his brother had not rather too much for the good of his
lawful supremacy.

CHAPTER VII
Unfruitful Suggestions

"Raymond! Can you spare me a moment before you go into your
mother's room?"

It was Rosamond who, to his surprise, as he was about to go down-
stairs, met him and drew him into her apartment--his mother's own
dressing-room, which he had not entered since the accident.

"Is anything the matter?" he said, thinking that Julius might have
spared him from complaints of Cecil.

"Oh no! only one never can speak to you, and Julius told me that you
could tell me about Mrs. Poynsett. I can't help thinking she could
be moved more than she is." Then, as he was beginning to speak, "Do
you know that, the morning of the fire, I carried her with only one
of the maids to the couch under the tent-room window? Susan was
frightened out of her wits, but she was not a bit the worse for it."

"Ah! that was excit