"Oh, don't ask me," returned Waveney, in an exasperated tone. "If only dear father would stick to his schools, and his drawing-classes, and not try to paint these pictures! They seem grand to us, but they are not really well done. Don't you remember Mr. Fullarton said so? We were in the back room, but we heard him plainly. 'You are too ambitious, Ward'--that was what he said; 'the public is tired of these old hackneyed subjects. Why don't you hit on something pathetic and suggestive--some fetching little incident that tells its own story?' '"Child and St. Bernard Dog," for example,' returned father, grimly, 'and write under it, "Nellie's Guardian." Would that do, Fullarton? But I suppose anything would do for pot-boilers.'" "Oh, yes, I recollect," returned Mollie, with a long-drawn sigh. "Poor old dad! How low he seemed that day! And this evening, if----" But Waveney would not let her finish the sentence. "Never mind that just now. It is no use crossing the bridge till you come to it; let us go upstairs and be cosy, for I have a lot I want to say to you;" and then they went up arm-in-arm--Mollie was almost a head taller than her sister--and sat down side by side on the big couch; and then Waveney began to laugh. "Oh, Mollie, I have had such an adventure; I did not want Noel to hear it, because he would have teased me so unmercifully. Don't you recollect that horrid note-book that we found?" And then, at the recollection, Mollie began to giggle, and finally both she and Waveney became so hysterical with suppressed mirth that they had almost to stifle themselves in the cushions for fear Noel should hear them. For it was only lately that they had become acquainted with the dark and Machiavellian policy of that artful youth. Evening after evening, as they had exchanged their girlish confidences, Noel had sat by them with a stolid and abstracted look, apparently drawing pen-and-ink devils--a favourite amusement of his; but it was Mollie who found him out. "The Adventures of Waveney Edna Ward, _alias_ Storm and Stress," was scrawled on the title-page, and thereupon followed a series of biographical sketches, profusely illustrated. "Storm and Stress with the Bull of Bashan"--a singularly graphic description of Waveney's terror at meeting an angry cow in the lane. "No. II.--Storm and Stress. Saving an Orphan's Life--the Orphan being a deserted, half-starved kitten, now an elderly cat rejoicing in the name of Mrs. Muggins;" and so on. Every little incident touched up or finely caricatured in a masterly manner. Père Ward had been so charmed with this manifestation of his son's talent that he had carried off the note-book and locked it up amongst his treasures. "That boy will make his mark," he would say, proudly. "But we must give him plenty of scope." And, indeed, it could not be denied that Noel had a fairly long tether.