“Snubbed!” echoed Mrs. Graham-Shute, scandalised; “a housekeeper’s daughter to dare to snub _you_--a Graham-Shute--my son! No, no, Donald, you must have misunderstood her, you must really!” “I know jolly well that I didn’t misunderstand,” blurted out Donald, in the usual highly-pitched family voice. “She simply dismissed me as if she’d been a princess, and I nobody at all, when all the time I could, if I liked----” Here Donald paused, significantly, wishing to yield, with apparent reluctance, to his burning desire to betray the girl’s little secret. Mrs. Graham-Shute’s face woke at once into eager interest. She was not at heart an ill-natured woman, and it would have given her no satisfaction to hear anything very dreadful to the girl’s discredit. But some trifling indiscretion, some girlish escapade, which it would annoy John Bradfield, and, perhaps, disgust him to know, that Mrs. Graham-Shute would have dearly liked to hear about. “What is it! What is it she has done?” she asked, quickly. “You may tell your mother, you know. It is nothing serious, of course?” “Well, I don’t know,” grumbled Donald, in a surly tone. “Some people might think it serious for a girl to keep up a correspondence with some fellow, who daren’t send his letters by post!” “What!” cried Mrs. Graham-Shute. “Ah!--are you sure of this, Donald?” Nothing could be better than this, if it were only true. There was no great harm in it, but it was just the sort of thing to put an elderly admirer on his guard. “Has she got you to take letters for her, then?” she asked in horror. “Me? No--not such a fool!” returned Donald, shortly. The lad was uneasy, being ashamed of himself for having betrayed the girl’s confidence, forced though it had been, and afraid of the use his mother might make of it. “Now, you won’t go and make any mischief, will you, mother?” he said earnestly, alarmed by the expression of satisfaction on her face. “I should think you might trust me,” she said haughtily, as she moved away, anxious to make use, without delay, of her new weapon. Having managed to detach cousin John momentarily from the Abercarnes, who were, in truth, glad of a little relief from his attentions, Mrs. Graham-Shute asked her cousin to get her a cup of tea. He complied, and would immediately have escaped, but she detained him by bringing her fan down with a sharp snap on his arm. “One moment, John; I think you might spare me one moment, especially as I want to talk to you about your favourites,” she said, rather snappishly, as he reluctantly waited. “Oh, if you’re going on again about them,” said John shortly, “you may save yourself the trouble. They _are_ my favourites, and there’s an end of it.” “Quite so,” rejoined his cousin sweetly. “It’s because of the great interest I know you take in them, that I want to speak to you. Who is this young fellow that Miss Abercarne is going to marry?”