an with a
person who sulks. I'll sulk, and she won't be paid to have me!" So one
sister had sulked and the other gaped the whole of that first long
evening, and then, becoming increasingly freed from their fears, began
to smile secretly across the table, to nod and to nudge, to telegraph
messages in the silent but eloquent fashions to which members of a large
family resort when visitors are present and talking is not allowed. And
Aunt Maria munched her food, and wrapped the Paisley shawl more closely
round her shoulders, and cast not a glance to right or left! A blissful
possibility was broached that she had changed her mind, and did not
desire a visitor after all.

Wednesday and Thursday passed in increasing calm, but on Friday morning
certain alarming symptoms became visible. Mrs Garnett came to
breakfast with unmistakable signs of agitation upon her face. Mr
Garnett was silent and distrait, hid behind his newspaper, and answered
at random the remarks of his family. Late arrivals were allowed to pass
without reproach, and Tim's raids upon the marmalade received no further
protest than a flickering smile.

The die was cast! The girls knew it without a word; in a stupor of
misery they sat, ears cocked, hearts in their boots, waiting for a sign
which should betray the truth, and decide once for all the identity of
the victim.

It came at last, towards the end of the meal, in the midst of a ghastly
silence.

"Darsie, darling," said Mrs Garnett fondly, "won't you have some more
coffee?"

"_Darling_!" Never were Mrs Garnett's north-country lips known to use
that term except under stress of the most poignant emotion. To be
"darling" one was compelled to be very ill, very sad, angelically
repentant, or in an extremity of fear, and Darsie, who this morning was
not afflicted in any one of these three ways, realised in a flash the
awful significance of the term. She sat white and silent, too dazed for
speech, and to do them justice Clemence and Lavender looked almost as
perturbed as herself, relief on their own account being eclipsed for the
moment by a realisation of the loss which the holiday party was about to
sustain. With a sudden and uninvited humility each sister mentally
acknowledged that for the general good of the family it would have been
better had the choice fallen upon herself!

Darsie braced her feet against a leg of the table, and struggled with a
lump in her throat. Coffee? she never wanted