The old lady’s red nose admonished her nephew. She twitched her eyebrows, flapped and fluttered with her fan, looking outraged both as to pride and affection. “Certainly, my dear nephew,” she said, with an ironical twist of the mouth. “I am a little older than Miss Jilian Hardacre. We are both of us out of temper, sweet Jill and your old aunt, and when two cats will quarrel under one’s bedroom one of ’em must be silenced. Precisely so, my dear Richard; I will cumber your hospitality no longer.” Jeffray, flushed and uncomfortable, and suffering the usual feelings of discourtesy and ingratitude that assail a young man on such occasions, clung to the conviction none the less, that the feud would not end without the Lady Letitia’s departure. “I am sorry, madam,” he said, “that I am compelled to speak to you like this, but I shall be unable to quit myself as a man of honor to the Hardacres so long as you remain at Rodenham.” Aunt Letitia’s eyes glittered as though it would please her to repeat a certain episode of her nephew’s youth when she had tanned him royally with a slipper. “Do not apologize, sir,” she said; “perhaps you will have the goodness to tell me whether I am to be ejected to-morrow, or will you grant me a week’s respite to prepare for exile?” “I pray you, consider your own convenience,” returned Jeffray, blushing. “I must send Parsons to The Wells to engage decent rooms for me. My bankers must be negotiated with. This is so sudden, sir, that you have caught me unprepared.” Jeffray suggested that he would be happy to oblige his aunt in any way that she might desire. Aunt Letitia frowned and played with her fan. The dowager’s treasure-chest was nearly empty, and it would be a month or more before she could count upon the paying of her dividends. Could her nephew oblige her with a loan of a hundred guineas at an interest of five per cent.? Aunt Letitia appeared in no wise distressed by having to confide such delicate matters to her nephew. In fact, she built a grievance out of her inconveniences, and spoke with sarcastic significance of being “taken by so sudden a surprise.” Richard, eager to salve the old lady’s feelings, offered her a loan of two hundred guineas, repudiating the very thought of usury with scorn. Aunt Letitia clutched at the concession, and the interview ended with some symptoms of amiability, the dowager actually kissing her nephew before she hobbled off to bed. Richard was in the saddle early next morning and away for Hardacre with the spring sun streaming down upon the greens and purples of Pevensel. The bright zest of the day was in his blood, generous and blithe as the spirit of youth itself. He was eager to crave Jilian’s forgiveness, and to quit himself as his manhood prompted in the matter of saluting the Hardacre honor. Richard rode in the belief that he had shamed his kinswoman, and that he had bruised her kind heart by his aunt’s duplicity.