"Your blood be on your own head," says Barbara, solemnly. "If, however, it goes too far, I warn you there are remedies. When it occurs to you that life is no longer worth living, go to the library; you will find there a revolver. It is three hundred years old, I'm told, and it is hung very high on the wall to keep it out of Freddy's reach. Blow your brains out with it--if you can." "You're awfully good, awfully thoughtful," says Mr. Dysart, "but I don't think, when the final catastrophe arrives, it will be suicide. If I must murder somebody, it will certainly not be myself; it will be either the children or the mutton." Mrs. Monkton laughs, then turns a serious eye on Tommy. "Now, Tommy," says she, addressing him with a gravity that should have overwhelmed him, "I am going away from you for an hour or so, and Mr. Dysart has kindly accepted your invitation to lunch with him. I do hope," with increasing impressiveness, "you will be good." "I hope so, too," returns Tommy, genially. There is an astonished pause, confined to the elders only, and then, Mr. Dysart, unable to restrain himself any longer, bursts but laughing. "Could anything be more candid?" says he; "more full of trust in himself, and yet with a certain modesty withal! There! you can go, Mrs. Monkton, with a clear conscience. I am not afraid to give myself up to the open-handed dealing of your son." Then his tone changes--he follows her quickly as she turns from him to the children to bid them good-bye. "Miss Kavanagh," says he, "is she well--happy?" "She is well," says Barbara, stopping to look back at him with her hand on Mabel's shoulder--there is reservation in her answer. "Had she any idea that I would call to-day?" This question is absolutely forced from him. "How should she? Even I--did I know it? Certainly I thought you would come some day, and soon, and she may have thought so, too, but--you should have told me. You called too soon. Impatience is a vice," says Mrs. Monkton, shaking her head in a very kindly fashion, however. "I suppose when she knows--when," with a rather sad smile, "you tell her--I am to be here on her return this afternoon she will not come with you." "Oh, yes, she will. I think so--I am sure of it. But you must understand, Felix, that she is very peculiar, difficult is what they call it now-a-days. And," pausing and glancing at him, "she is angry, too, about something that happened before you left last autumn. I hardly know what; I have imagined only, and," rapidly, "don't let us go into it, but you will know that there was something." "Something, yes," says he. "Well, a trifle, probably. I have said she is difficult. But you failed somewhere, and she is slow to pardon--where----" "Where! What does that mean?" demands the young man, a great spring of hope taking life within his eyes. "Ah, that hardly matters. But she is not forgiving. She is the very dearest girl I know, but that is one of her faults."