“Why, how is this, Aunt Agrippina? This child says you told her I sent for her. It was surely a mistake. I never sent for her,” said Colonel de Crespigney, as soon as he saw Miss Grip. “No one said you did. I told her you wanted her, and so you do want her, or at least you ought to,” grimly replied the lady. “Why, what on earth do you mean, Miss de Crespigney?” “You know very well what I mean, or you should know,” severely retorted Miss Grip. “Upon my sacred word of honor, I don’t! Pray explain yourself,” entreated the colonel. Instead of replying to him, Miss Agrippina deliberately divested herself of her bonnet and shawl and gave them to the child, saying: “Here, my dear, take these up into my room and put them away carefully.” “Now, then, what do you mean?” demanded the colonel, when the little girl had disappeared into the house. “I mean that you want your ward to stay at home until she goes to school, which she must do very soon,” said Miss Grip, decidedly. “Go to school? How can she? There is no school fit for her within fifty miles of this place.” “Certainly not. She must be sent away to a first-class boarding-school.” “I cannot consent to that, Aunt Agrippina. I cannot, and will not. I cannot part with her. Besides, it would break her heart to send her away.” “Fiddle!” said Miss Grip. “Yet I see that she should have instruction. I will advertise for a first-class resident governess.” “You will not do any such thing, Colonel Marcellus de Crespigney! A resident governess in the house, indeed! Why, she would marry you in six months!” “Absurd!” indignantly exclaimed the colonel. “Oh, yes, you may call it ‘absurd,’ if you like! But I know you, Marcellus! Any needy woman, any single woman, I mean, young or old, plain or pretty, shut up in the same house with you, would marry you out of hand!” “You must think me a very weak man,” said the colonel. “I do,” said Miss Grip. “Thank you,” said De Crespigney, with an air of chagrin. “Weak where your sympathies are concerned, Marcel, and that is no discredit to you, my dear! But I’ll not have any wandering woman making her market at your expense! No, sir! no resident governess, if you please!” “I hope, Aunt Agrippina, you will permit me to be master of my own house, so far as to say who shall or shall not make a part of my family.” “Oh, by all means, and take the consequences, too, for if you engage a resident governess, I shall leave the house. And after I go what respectable woman, do you suppose, would come and live here with a young widower, and no lady of his family to keep her in countenance? Ah, ha! I have you there, Marcel! Yes, and I mean to keep you there!” “It is rather unkind of you, Aunt Agrippina; but I shall not argue the point, since I know from experience that nothing ever turned you from any resolution that you had formed. Still, I say, it is very unkind of you,” said the colonel, with a wounded air.