"Father says you had tea with Miss Goodwin and Mrs. Mickle at Myrtle Villa. Didn't you find it rather slow?" She shook her head, but made no reply in words. Surprised at her silence, he looked at her scrutinously, and noted the signs of recent grief upon her countenance. "You've been crying!" he exclaimed in accents of intense astonishment, for his sister was not of a tearful disposition as a rule. "What's the matter? Have you quarrelled with the girls at school, or—" "Oh no, no! But I'm very unhappy, Gerald, and—and it's about you!" "About me!" Gerald's face at first expressed nothing but bewilderment; then he flushed and began to look somewhat uneasy. "What me?" he asked. "What have I been doing to make you cry? Why, we've not been alone together for days. You're talking nonsense." "I have heard where you were on Saturday afternoon," she said in low, reproachful tones; "you went to the clay pits fishing, and you told me that you were going to play cricket with the grammar school boys. Oh, what made you tell me such a story? And why did you disobey Uncle Edward?" For a moment there was dead silence, then Gerald burst out wrathfully, "I know who told you! It was that sneaking cripple, Gilbert Mickle! But I'll be even with him yet! Oh, how I hate him! He's always prying into my business—and interfering with me! The wretched—" "Hush, hush!" Angel interrupted indignantly. "Don't speak like that. How can you, Gerald? Besides, it was not Gilbert who told me." "Not Gilbert? Who was it, then?" "It doesn't matter who it was," she replied, "and I shall not tell you." "Don't! I don't care! It was some meddlesome busybody! If I did go to the clay pits, what has that to do with you?" he demanded angrily. "A great deal. How should I feel if you fell into one of the pits and got drowned?" And the tears welled into her eyes at the thought. "Pooh! I'm not likely to do that!" he retorted scornfully. "Did you forget Uncle Edward had forbidden you to go there? But, no! You told me a story, thinking it wouldn't be found out where you'd been." "Well, you needn't make such a fuss about it. I won't tell you what isn't true again. I went with Reginald Hope to get some fish for his aquarium; I couldn't well refuse to go; if I had, it would have seemed so disobliging." "Not if you had told him Uncle Edward had forbidden us to go near the clay pits." Gerald was silent, not deeming it prudent to explain that he had informed his friend of that fact, and had been laughed out of the thought of obedience. Gilbert Mickle had not been very far wrong when he had said that Reginald Hope had Gerald under his thumb. "I didn't want to go," the boy acknowledged at length, "but Hope made such a point of it, and so—and so I went. Of course, I know it wasn't right of me, and I wouldn't have father or Uncle Edward hear about it for anything. You won't tell them, will you, Angel?" And he placed a coaxing arm around his sister's neck.