“Miss Bradley had better try the stuff on her own wisp then,” retorted Mabin angrily. “What is the house like inside, Mabin?” asked Ethel, who, though only twelve, was quite as great a gossip as there was in the parish. “Why, there were chairs and tables in it, just as there are in every other house. What do you suppose it was like?” “Mabin, don’t snub the children. Their interest is very natural,” said Mr. Rose peevishly from the other end of the room. “Horsehair and mahogany, red moreen curtains, and a black marble clock on the mantelpiece,” said Mabin laconically. “Why, that doesn’t sound very nice, that you should be in such a hurry to go there!” objected Ethel. “But perhaps the other rooms are better.” “Very likely,” said Mabin. But Mabin was really just a little bit alarmed at her own good fortune in getting her father’s consent so easily. She had a superstitious feeling, in spite of her reputed strength of mind, that anything worth having ought to be rather difficult to get. In spite of all her loyalty to her heroine, too, she thought more often than she wished about Rudolph’s ridiculous fancy that Mrs. Dale was watched. And although she always dismissed the thought by saying to herself that Rudolph was in love with the lovely widow, and therefore “fancied things,” she was anxious to meet him again and to learn whether he still thought that the fair tenant of “The Towers” was being watched. In the mean time great confusion reigned at “Stone House.” Everybody was immersed in the horrors of “packing up,” and it was impossible to go upstairs without encountering people staggering under the burden of a heap of things which would have been better left behind. Even the authority of Mr. Rose, who disliked the daily routine to be disturbed, failed to get any meal eaten at the proper time, or without unnecessary hurry. Even the fact that Mr. Rose’s old friend Mrs. Haybrow was expected on a short visit before the migration, failed to check the fury of the packers. It was unfortunate that she should come at such a time, certainly. But Mrs. Rose reckoned on inflaming her friend’s mind with her own zeal, and inwardly proposed orgies of competitive trunk-filling to while away the visitor’s time. Mrs. Rose secretly hoped, too, that Mrs. Haybrow, through her connections at Todcaster, would be able to furnish her husband with proofs that Mrs. Dale was not a person to be encouraged. It was not yet too late to put off Mrs. Dale, although Mr. Rose had called upon that person to thank her for the invitation to his daughter and to accept it. It was the day of Mrs. Haybrow’s expected arrival, and Mr. and Mrs. Rose had driven to the station to meet her. Mabin, wondering whether the visitor, whom she had not seen since she was a child, would be “nice,” was hobbling along the garden path, rather painfully indeed, but at last without a crutch, when she heard a great rustling of the branches of the lilac bushes which grew close under the wall.