"Tush, Jan!" ejaculated the squire, fretfully, the more that his conscience had already secretly blamed him. "No gratitude I owe the rogue, if both sides of the ledger be balanced. 'T is he brought about the scrape that led to my arrest." "Ay," went on Mrs. Meredith, delighted to be thus supported, "I have small doubt thy indelicacy with him will land us all in prison. Such folly is beyond belief, and came not from my family, Mr. Meredith," she added, turning on her husband. "Well, well, wife; all the folly in the lass scarce comes from my side, for 't is to be remembered that ye were foolish enough to marry me," suggested the squire, placably, his anger at his daughter already melted by the sight of her distress. "Don't be too stern with the child; she is yet but a filly." "Thee means but a silly," snapped Mrs. Meredith, made the more angry by his defence of the girl. "Men are all of a piece, and cannot hold anger if the eyes be bright, or the waist be slim," she thought to herself wrathfully, quite forgetful of the time when that very tendency in masculine kind had been to her one of its merits. "Set to on the quilt, girl, and see to it that there's no sneaking to the kitchen." Scarcely had Janice, obedient to her mother's behest, seated herself at the big quilting-frame, when Lord Clowes joined her. "They treat ye harsh, Miss Janice," he remarked sympathetically; "but 't is an unforgiving world, as I have good cause to wot." Janice, who had stooped lower over the patches when first he spoke, flashed her eyes up for an instant, and then dropped them again. "And one is blamed and punished for much that deserves it not. I' faith, I know one man who stands disgraced to the woman he loves best, for no better cause than that the depth of his passion was so boundless that he went to every length to gain her." The quilter fitted a red calimanco patch in place, and studied the effect with intense interest. "Wouldst like me to carry a message to the prisoner, Miss Janice?" "Oh, will you?" murmured the girl, gratefully and eagerly. "Wilt tell him that I knew nothing of the plan to capture him, and was only trying to aid his escape? That, after all his kindness, I would never--" Here the eager flow of words received a check by the re-entrance of Mrs. Meredith. Dropping his hand upon the quilting-frame so that it covered one of the girl's, the commissary conveyed by a slight pressure a pledge of fulfilment of her wish, and, after a few moments' passing chat, left the room. Before a lapse of ten minutes he returned, and took a chair near the girl. Glancing at her mother, to see if her eyes wandered from the sock she was resoling, Janice raised her eyebrows with furtive inquiry. In answer the baron shook his head. "'T is a curious commentary on man, "he observed thoughtfully, "that he always looks on the black side of his fellow-creatures, and will not believe that they can be honest and truthful."