‘I don’t believe he is out--he is being “jawed,” as he calls it, in papa’s study: don’t you hear them? Papa is at it hot! and what good will it do? He will only say the same thing over and over--I could say it all myself off by heart, everything papa says--and, of course, so could Jim, and what good can that do? Come and stop it, Mab. Jim will be so thankful to you: and poor papa won’t be sorry either,’ Florence said, with a more sympathetic perception, ‘for he knows it’s useless; but when he once begins he can’t stop himself.’ ‘Oh,’ said Mab, ‘I can’t go and disturb Uncle James.’ ‘When he’ll be so thankful to be disturbed!’ said Florry, ‘and you much better than me, for you will have the air of not knowing what it all means. No; don’t go to the study door. Go round by the garden, to the window where he can see you coming. Walk slowly, and make a little noise to attract their attention, so that you may not take them unawares. You might ring, or whistle, or something--or call to Dash--and then papa would see you, and have time to make up a face.’ These domestic diplomacies were unknown to Mab, but she took to them with the natural instinct of femininity. There was a certain element of fun, too, in stopping what she still called ‘a scolding,’ and in getting the culprit off--even though the culprit did not commend himself very warmly to her partiality. She carried out the programme accordingly, while Florence waited just out of sight of the study window. It was not a French window like those in the drawing-room, and it looked out upon the dullest portion of the surroundings--a bit of grass where the water lay treacherous during the long winter months in the slight concave of the ground, with shrubs cruelly green and unchanging around it, and a dead wall which they only partially veiled behind. Mab began to call Dash loudly as she walked round the corner to this sanctuary, scattering the gravel with her feet.