who followed was clever enough to read defiance in the pose of
her head and resentment in her shoulders. When a beggar-woman, more
importunate than the rest, caught hold of her skirt, and Flavia flicked
her with the whip as she would have flicked a dog, he understood. And
when the dogs in the court fell upon her in a troop and were kicked to
right and left, and when a babe, that, clothed in a single shift, was
crawling on hands and knees upon the threshold, was removed in the same
manner--but more gently--still he understood.

There were other dogs in the stone-paved hall; a hen too, finding its
food on the floor and strutting here and there as if it had never known
another home. On the left of the door, an oak table stood laid for the
mid-day meal; on the right, before a carved stone chimney-piece, under
which a huge log smouldered on the andirons, two or three men were
seated. These rose on the entrance of the young mistress-they were
dependants of the better class, for whom open house was kept at
Morristown when business brought them thither. And, so far, all was
well. Yet it may be that on the instant eyes which had been blind to
defects were opened by the presence of this stranger from the outer
world. For Flavia's voice was hard as she asked old Darby, the butler,
if The McMurrough was in the house.

"Faith, I believe not," said he. "His honour, nor the other quality,
have not returned from the fishing."

"Well, let him know when he comes in," she rejoined, "that Colonel John
Sullivan has arrived from Sweden, and," she added with a faint sneer,
"it were well if you put on your uniform coat, Darby."

The old butler did not hear the last words. He was looking at the
new-comer. "Glory be to God, Colonel," he said; "it's in a field of
peas I'd have known you! True for you, you're as like the father that
bred you as the two covers of a book! It's he was the grand gentleman!
I was beyond the Mahoney's great gravestone when he shot Squire Crosby
in the old church-yard of Tralee for an appetite to his breakfast! More
by token, he went out with the garrison officer after his second bottle
that same day that ever was--and the creature shot him in the knee--bad
luck to him for a foreigner and a Protestant--and he limped to his
dying day!"

The girl laughed unkindly. "You're opening your mouth and putting your
foot in it, Darby," she said. "If the Colonel is not a foreigner----"

"And sure he couldn't be that, and his o