And Bubbles looked up with an injured, innocent expression. "Of course it's understood! Though, as a matter of fact, Miss Burnaby has already asked me to give her a private sitting." "You must promise me to refuse, Bubbles--" Miss Farrow spoke very decidedly. "I don't know how you do what you did last night, and, to tell you the truth, I don't care--for it's none of my business. But there was one moment this morning when I feared that horrid Mr. Burnaby was going to take his sister and his niece away--and that really would have been serious!" "Serious?" queried Bubbles. "Why serious, Blanche? We should have got on very well without them." Her aunt looked round. They were quite alone, standing, for the moment, in a far corner of the great room, near the finely carved confessional box, which seemed, even to Blanche Farrow, an incongruous addition to the furniture. "You're very much mistaken, Bubbles! Lionel would have never forgiven you--or me. He attaches great importance to these people; Helen Brabazon was a great friend of his poor wife's." She hesitated, and then said rather awkwardly: "I sometimes wish you liked him better; he's a good friend, Bubbles." "I should think more a bad enemy than a good friend," muttered the girl, in so low a voice that her aunt hardly caught the ungracious words. That was all--but that was enough. Blanche told herself that she had now amply fulfilled the promise she had made to Lionel Varick when the two had stood speeding their parting guest this morning from Wyndfell Hall. Even quite at the end Mr. Burnaby had been barely civil. He seemed to think that there had been some kind of conspiracy against him the night before; and as they watched the car go over the moat bridge, Varick had muttered: "I wouldn't have had this happen for a thousand pounds!" But he had recovered his good temper, and even apologized to Blanche for having felt so much put out by the action of a cantankerous old man. The others were now all streaming into the hall, and Bubbles would hardly allow the good-natured Sir Lyon and Bill Donnington to finish their cigarettes before she shooed them out to cut down some ivy. Varick looked annoyed when he heard that the decorations in the church were not yet finished. "Can't we bribe some of the servants to go down and do them?" he asked. "It seems a shame that you and Donnington should have to go off there again in the cold and darkness." But in her own way Bubbles had almost as strong a will as had her host. She always knew what she wanted to do, and generally managed to do it. "I would much rather finish the work myself, and I think Bill would rather come too," she said coolly.