“A surprise, Miss Avesham?” she cried. “Will you ever forgive me, for I am the secretary? But Colonel Raymond said--” and she paused, looking distressfully at Miss Fortescue. Jeannie caught the look, and saw that Miss Clifford’s face was the picture of agonized embarrassment. “Go on, Aunt Em,” she said, “I’ll come after you.” Miss Fortescue looked at the ceiling in mute appeal, and then marched down the stairs. “There’s no harm done, Miss Clifford,” said Jeannie; “I assure you I don’t in the least mind. But what did Colonel Raymond say? Oh, take care, the catalogues are slipping.” It was too late; the pile bulged ominously in the middle, and then fell all ways at once to the ground. Miss Clifford clutched wildly at them as they fell, but the disaster was there. “We’ll pick them up first,” said Jeannie. “Gracious, what a lot of them! Where do you want them put? Take care, you’re treading on some.” “I was just taking them to the entrance where people pay,” said poor Miss Clifford. “Please don’t trouble; indeed, it is too good of you.” Jeannie collected a foot or two of them, and together they deposited them all on the table by the entrance. “And now, Miss Clifford,” she said, “will you just give me two words with you? First of all I assure you solemnly that I don’t in the least mind the picture being in the exhibition, so if it was you who passed it you can make your mind perfectly easy. But what did Colonel Raymond say about it?” Miss Clifford looked round as if she was half determined to run away. “I cannot tell you, Miss Avesham; indeed, I cannot tell you,” she almost moaned. “Oh, don’t be so distressed,” said Jeannie, with the air of a grown-up person soothing a child. “I am sure I should never be anything but amused at what Colonel Raymond--I mean Cousin Raymond--said. Please tell me.” Miss Clifford closed her eyes and clenched her hands. “He said--he said there was some understanding between you and Mr. Collingwood, but that you didn’t wish it to be known yet.” Jeannie’s smile faded, and a look of intense surprise took its place. “Colonel Raymond said that?” she asked. “Do you mean he meant we were engaged?” Miss Clifford shut her mouth very tight, but moved her head as if she was swallowing. “That we were engaged?” repeated Jeannie, wishing to be quite certain. Miss Clifford’s lips formed the word “yes,” but no sound issued. Jeannie sat down on a stone seat at the top of the stairs. “Cousin Raymond is a very imaginative man,” she said. “Miss Clifford, I have never consciously set eyes on Mr. Collingwood. Oh, yes, I have. I remember now a young man coming round the corner of the mill when Toby was shaking himself. I think that must be he. Now!” “It is terrible, terrible!” moaned Miss Clifford. “I have never been so ashamed.” Jeannie was not attending to her particularly. “Cousin, too,” she said. “He’s no more my cousin than Mrs. Collingwood is.”