She paused and puckered her brow in a perplexed frown. "Now who, I pray you, is the girl of his heart? Cannot some of you help me to guess?" "Methinks 'twould be an easy task for you," laughed Mistress Strudwick. "_Me?_" repeated Joscelyn, still with that air of perplexed innocence. "Nay, he was ever so full of jokes and quarrels that it never came to me he had a heart." "Mayhap it is Dorothy Graham he means," said a voice in the crowd. "More like 'tis Patience Ruffin." "Or little Janet Cameron--he set much store by her." "Nay," said a teasing voice, "Janet is going to be a nun; such messages to her would not be proper." Whereat there was a general laugh. "Whoever she is, 'tis a pity she should miss her love message through her lover's obscurity and our ignorance," said Joscelyn. "What think you, Mistress Strudwick, were it not a good plan to post this page upon the banister here that all who pass may read? In this wise we may find the maid." With a pin from her bodice, and using her high-heeled slipper--which she drew off for the purpose--as a hammer, she tacked the paper to the banister. But it had not fluttered twice in the wind ere Betty had snatched it down. "Shame on you, Joscelyn, for so exposing my brother's letter!" "Oh, I meant not to anger you, Betty," returned the girl, sweetly, as she took the letter again and thrust it into her bodice. "Since you like not this plan, we will have the town-crier search out the mysterious damsel and bring her here to read for herself. Let us see how the cry would run: 'Wanted, wanted, the girl of Richard Clevering's heart to read his greeting on Mistress Cheshire's porch!'" She stooped to buckle her shoe, her foot on the round of Mistress Strudwick's chair, and so they saw not the laughter in her eyes. She knew well that Betty would not fail to write Richard of the scene, and she already fancied his anger; she could have laughed aloud. "Methinks I have paid you back a score, Master Impertinence," she said to herself, and then fell to talking to Dorothy Graham until the company dispersed. That night Betty, running in on a message from her mother, found Joscelyn using the fragments of the ill-fated letter to curl the long hair of Gyp, the house-dog, and she went home to add an indignant postscript to the missive to her brother, over which she had spent the afternoon. But even as she wrote she knew he would not heed her advice; and sure enough, in course of time another letter came to the house on the terrace:-- "The girl of my heart is that teasing Tory, Joscelyn Cheshire, who conceals her tender nature under such show of scorning. One day her love shall strike its scarlet colours to the blue and buff of mine; and her lips, instead of mocking, will be given over to smiles and kisses, for which purpose nature made them so beautiful.