“Really, Colonel, I can’t agree with you. For my own part I thought his attitude towards her relatives was all that was courteous and respectful. Certainly to her mother!” She bridled, and Joy grew more serious. Her mother calling her husband “Colonel” was another danger-signal; and she knew that if once her father and mother got to loggerheads over him--“him” was her way of thinking of Mr. Hardy--it might keep him away from her. She summoned up her courage and said with all the affectionate raillery which was usually so effective with her father: “Daddy dear do you remember Æsop’s fable about the Boy and the Frogs?” “I suppose I ought to, little girl; but I’m afraid I have forgotten. What was it about?” “The Boys were throwing stones at the Frogs, and when the Frogs remonstrated the Boys said they were doing it for fun. So the Frogs answered: ‘It may be fun to you; but it is death to us!’” Colonel Ogilvie puckered up his eyebrows: “I remember, now, my dear; but for the life of me I don’t see its application here.” Joy said with a preternatural demureness: “It means Daddy, that you are the Boy and I am the Frog!” Her father’s gravity became intensified: “That does not help me much, daughter!” “Well, you see, Daddy, here are you and mother commenting on how a man looked at me--and--so forth. But you don’t take into consideration the sensitiveness of a woman’s heart--let alone her vanity. I think you’ve forgotten that I am not now ‘merely a child emerging into womanhood’--don’t you remember on the _Cryptic_--but a staid woman to whose waning attractions everything relating to a man is sacred. One who looks on man, her possible rescuer from the terrors of old maidhood with the desperation of accomplished years.” As she had spoken unthinkingly the word “rescuer” a hot tide of blood had rushed to her face, but she went bravely on to the end of her sentence. There was not one of the three who did not understand the meaning. Her mother and aunt were concerned at the self-betrayal. Her father’s face grew fixed, now to sternness. With a faint heart Joy felt that she had made a terrible mistake, and inwardly condemned herself for its foolishness. Colonel Ogilvie now went on with grave deliberateness, he was determined that there should be no error regarding his disapprobation. All the time he was inwardly fuming against Mr. Hardy whom he held responsible: “As I was saying, that fellow’s attitude, as it appeared to me, was wanting in both openness and that confidence which underlies respect.” Here Joy quivered. Judy, watching her, noticed it and for a moment was scared. But the girl at once forced herself into calm, and Judy’s anxiety quite disappeared. She knew that Joy was now quite master of herself, and would remain so. The Colonel, accepting the dejected silence as a request to continue, went on: