"There's armour there enough for a regiment of soldiers," she said with fine disregard of modern military equipment, "and pictures by the mile. Chimney-vases hundreds of years old, worth their weight in gold, standing about in corners like dirt. Mind, too," she added, with a ring of sombre reminiscence in her tones, "they break if you so much as look at 'em. Don't forget to see the tapestry that was wove by a queen and her ladies, and if Mr. Graeme's there, get him to show you the secret passage--there's one behind a sliding panel in Sir Malcolm's library." "Oh!" gasped Jane and Cornelius James in chorus. "Graeme will be there," cried the latter with dancing eyes. "And a nice young gentleman he is," said the woman. "Comes here to get my husband to go ferreting and drops in afterwards for a cup of tea. Quiet, you know, and unassuming; happier, they say, with us farmer folk than with lords and ladies of the County. That's the gossip in these parts, but I was never one myself for----" "Did you say we should meet him?" inquired Georgina of her brother, with lofty indifference a shade over accentuated. "Yes," was the reply, "and you needn't put on airs because you are going to have tea with a grown-up man." "And a silly little boy," retorted Georgina, nettled. She sighted Miss Mayne. "Corney's frightfully jealous that we're going to steal his beloved Mr. Jakes from him," she scoffed. Miss Mayne laughed merrily. "Cheer up, Corney," she said. "We don't want your old Mr. Jakes, whoever he may be." She rumpled his hair affectionately. The child slipped his arm through that of the woman. "No," he replied, and looked up at her fair face quizzing down at him; a little smile lit his eyes in innocent roguery. "No, but he may want _you_!" "Oh!" exclaimed Miss Mayne. "Why, I do believe Georgie was right!" "How right?" "I believe you are a silly little boy, after all." Beneath another roof in the country Graeme Jakes formed the topic of conversation that summer morning. The Misses Smedley were alone in the music-room of The Garth, where Alicia was practising a "Jazz" waltz on the piano. Josephine, swaying her body sinuously to the rhythm, smoked a cigarette while she stared out of the window. "He's not what you'd call good looking," she said, "exactly." "No," replied Alicia, turning her music and nodding jerkily as the tune progressed. "All the same," said Josephine, "there's something rather----" she writhed expressively. The fair Alicia played in silence for some moments. "Don't work up a 'pash' over him till you know more about him. For all you know, he's married already--or wrapped up in another girl. Sailors are devils." Josephine took three "Jazz" steps across the room and threw the stump of her cigarette into the fireplace. "I like devils," said the supple virgin, "'specially ugly ones."