“I will wait up for father, too,” he announced sturdily. “Let’s both wait up.” Phyllis looked more superior than ever. “You are very silly, Leslie,” she returned. “How can you wait up for your father when he is dead?” “What’s dead?” demanded Leslie, with wide-open eyes. “Dead? Oh, it’s being put down in a hole in the ground and being covered with a lot of nasty earth, and then having a great flat stone plumped down on top of you. That’s what your father is.” “He isn’t,” denied Leslie, with indignation. “He is, or else you would not be the Earl of Chesterwood.” “He isn’t!” Leslie stamped his foot. “He is!” “He isn’t. You are a horrid little girl, and I don’t like you a bit.” “Children, what are you quarrelling about?” said a lady’s voice from behind one of the pillars. “It is very naughty to quarrel. Come and tell me what is the matter.” Leslie dissolved into tears, and hid his face in the folds of his mother’s skirt, whilst Phyllis stood by abashed. Lady Chesterwood, not wishing to have her gown marred by her son’s emotion, produced a small cambric handkerchief, and placed it between the child’s face and her skirt. “Now,” she said, addressing herself to Phyllis, “why did you make Leslie cry?” “I didn’t make him cry,” the Premier’s daughter answered sulkily. “I only told him his father was dead. It is quite true. His father _is_ dead.” “He isn’t,” came from Leslie, in a stifled voice. “She says my father is in a hole in the ground, with a lot of nasty earth and a stone on top of him; and he isn’t! My father doesn’t live in a hole.” The Countess maintained a calm demeanour. “Your father is above the bright blue sky with the angels, sonnie,” she said soothingly. “Don’t you remember that I told you he had gone away to heaven?” “Yes.” Leslie raised his head triumphantly, and glowered at Phyllis. “My father is in heaven with the angels. I knew he wasn’t down a nasty hole in the ground!” Phyllis, still unconvinced, stalked away to rejoin her governess, and the Countess was spared the necessity of entering further into the problem. She wondered what Leslie would have to say if she were to provide him with a new father, and how he and Phyllis would agree. The letter which she had dashed off in Patricia’s boudoir had never been sent, for she had thought better of it before she reached home. She had not yet given a definite answer to her illustrious wooer, although a month had passed, but she knew that he was coming to Brighton expressly to hear what she had to say.