There had been a mistake in her quarterly account with Gardiner & Wells, and one Thursday afternoon Robert Gardiner had walked up to the Red House to speak to Miss Harford. Althea kept him waiting for ten minutes, as she was entertaining a visitor; but on entering the dining-room she found him standing at the window, so intent on watching a game of tennis that she addressed him by name before she could gain his attention. "I beg your pardon, Miss Harford," he said, hastily; he was a fair, good-looking man, and almost gentlemanly in manner. "I was watching the game. You have a capital tennis-court." "So every one says. Miss Greenwell is our best player." "She plays splendidly. I never saw such strokes;" and all through the brief interview Althea noticed how his eyes were following the girl's graceful movements. "If Nora and Minnie had not been playing, I think I should have invited him to have a game," she said afterwards to Doreen; "but I thought of Gardiner _père_, and was afraid I might shock his sense of propriety." "It would not have been good taste," returned Doreen, sensibly. "You may depend upon it that Robert Gardiner has very little to do with the young ladies of the establishment." And then they both laughed. "By the bye, Althea," observed Mr. Chaytor, when they had finished the subject of Nora Greenwell, "I am so glad you have taken your friends' advice, and have engaged a reader. I am sure Miss Ward will be a comfort to you." "I think so, too. She is very bright and intelligent, and she talks in the most amusing way. She is so natural and unsophisticated." "So I should imagine. Where did you pick her up?" "Doreen applied to an agency in Harley Street. But Thorold," and here her voice changed, "what singular coincidences there are in life! Is it not strange that she should be Everard Ward's daughter?" Mr. Chaytor was now sitting beside her, and as she said this he turned round and looked at her. He was evidently very much surprised. "I had no idea of that," he said, in a low tone. "There are so many Wards. Such a thought would never have occurred to me." And then he glanced at her keenly. "Is it not a little awkward for you, Althea?" Then a faint flush came to her cheeks. She was five or six years older than Thorold, but they had been old playfellows and dear friends, and his brother had been one of Althea's lovers in the Kitlands days; and he knew all about the Ward romance, and, lad as he was, he had predicted its ending, as he watched Dorothy play the part of Rosalind in the pastoral play. "I do not see why it should be awkward," she observed, quietly. "I have not met Mr. Ward for twenty years, but I should have no objection to do so to-morrow. He is very poor, Thorold, and I am afraid they are often in difficulties. His pictures do not sell well."