d; and, looking up presently with a sense of
injury, noticed that Maggie was reading her letter with extraordinary
diligence.

"My dear, I am speaking to you," said Mrs. Baxter, with an air of
slightly humorous dignity.

"Er--I am sorry," murmured Maggie, and continued reading.

Mrs. Baxter put out her hand for the _Bon Marche_ catalogue in order
to drive home her sense of injury, and met Maggie's eyes, suddenly
raised to meet her own, with a curious strained look in them.

"Darling, what is the matter?"

Maggie still stared at her a moment, as if questioning both herself
and the other, and finally handed the letter across with an abrupt
movement.

"Read it," she said.

It was rather a business to read it. It involved spectacles, a pushing
aside of a plate, and a slight turning to catch the light. Mrs. Baxter
read it, and handed it back, making three or four times the sound
written as "Tut."

"The tiresome boy!" she said querulously, but without alarm.

"What are we to do? You see, Mr. Morton thinks we ought to do
something. He mentions a Mr. Cathcart."

Mrs. Baxter reached out for the toast-rack.

"My dear, there's nothing to be done. You know what Laurie is. It'll
only make him worse."

Maggie looked at her uneasily.

"I wish we could do something," she said.

"My dear, he'd have written to me--Mr. Morton, I mean--if Laurie had
been really unwell. You see he only says he doesn't attend to his work
as he ought."

Maggie took up the letter, put it carefully back into the envelope,
and went on with breakfast. There was nothing more to be said just
then.

But she was uneasy, and after breakfast went out into the garden, spud
in hand, to think it all over, with the letter in her pocket.

Certainly the letter was not alarming _per se_, but _per
accidens_--that is to say, taking into account who it was that had
written, she was not so sure. She had met Mr. Morton but once, and had
formed of him the kind of impression that a girl would form of such a
man in the hours of a week-end--a brusque, ordinary kind of barrister
without much imagination and a good deal of shrewd force. It was
surely rather an extreme step for a man like this to write to a girl
in such a condition of things, asking her to use her influence to
dissuade Laurie from his present course of life. Plainly the man meant
what he said; he had not written to Mrs. Baxter, as he explained in
the letter, for fear of alarming her unduly, and, a