"Oh, you have asked?" She looked pleased; she had not expected so much of him. "Asked?--I've asked wherever I go, and not a soul has set eyes on her. I'll tell you how I do it. I say in an easy kind of way, not as if I cared, you know, but just like this, 'Any one seen Mrs. Stubbs yet?'--I call her 'Mrs. Stubbs' not to seem too familiar--and, what do you think? they laughed--Jimmy Tod and Merivale laughed--and Jimmy poked me with his whip, and said: 'If _you_ haven't, old fellow, no one has'. Of course they know I'm intimate with the Bolderos,"--and he drew up his collar with an air. "Why did you not mention this before, Val?" Val looked foolish. For the life of him he could not think why, the truth being that he had forgotten, but never supposed he could forget. "Well, never mind," pursued his grandmother; "what I mean is that you must meet your old playfellow out-of-doors, on her walks, or in the woods, or wherever she goes. She must go out: she must take the air somewhere,--and if you had had your wits about you, my dear boy, you could have found out where to-day." "You ought to have told me if you meant me to do that." "Then you must stop her--don't let her pass without speaking--and ask leave to join her--or them, if there are two,--but it would be better if you could catch Leonore alone. Somehow I feel sure the poor little thing is being kept away from us all," murmured the old lady pensively. "They are masterful people, the Bolderos. And Leo is so sweet and gentle----" "She's a Boldero though," struck in he. "And though she's sweet enough, hang me if Leo can't stand up for herself! I used to die of laughing when she tackled old Sue. Sue was afraid of her. You bet she hasn't forgotten the time they all thought Leo lost, and she was found hiding in a ditch." "Leonore? Hiding in a ditch?" "With her face blacked, and prepared to run away to the gipsies--ha--ha--ha!" "I never heard a word of it, Val." "Not likely, ma'am; we were all sworn to secrecy. I believe it was even kept dark from the general, for Sue's a good sort really, and Leo was such a little thing. Though she tried to brave it out she couldn't; and when she blubbed, the tears and the muck--you never saw such a little goblin face in your life." "And you were in her confidence? Talk about old days to her now." "Trust me. I always wanted to talk about them, but--I say, why were we never invited to meet the Stubbses when they came to the Abbey? We never were. Never once." "General Boldero was not proud of his son-in-law. No one was ever invited to meet him." "They say it was he who made the match, though."