But the parlor was empty, save for Laddie, who had been shut up there not to spoil sport, and who was whining most piteously to be let out. He saluted Archie with a joyous bark, and commenced licking his boots and wagging his tail with mute petition to be released from this durance vile. Archie patted and fondled him, for he was good to all dumb creatures. "Poor little fellow! I wonder why they have shut you up here?" he said; and then he took him up in his arms, and stepped to the window to reconnoitre. And then he stood and looked, perfectly fascinated by the novel sight. His sisters played battledore and shuttlecock in the school-room sometimes, or out in the passages on a winter's afternoon. He had once caught Susie and Clara at it, and had laughed at them in no measured terms for indulging in such a babyish game. "I should have thought Dottie might have played at that," he had said, rather contemptuously. "I suppose you indulge in skipping-ropes sometimes." And the poor girls had paused in their game, feeling ashamed of themselves. Archie would think them such hoydens. He remembered his reprimand with a strange feeling of compunction, as he stood by the window trying vainly to elude Laddie's caresses. What a shame of him to have spoiled those poor children's game with his sneer, when they had so little fun in their lives! and yet, as he recalled Clara's clumsy gestures and Susie's short-sighted attempts, he was obliged to confess that battledore and shuttlecock wore a different aspect now. Could anything surpass Phillis's swift-handed movements, brisk, graceful, alert, or Nan's attitude, as she sustained the duel? Dulce, who seemed dodging in between them in a most eccentric way, had her hair loose as usual, curling in brown lengths about her shoulders. She held it with one hand, as she poised her battledore with the other. This time Archie thought of Nausicaa and her maidens tossing the ball beside the river, after washing the wedding-garments. Was it in this way the young dressmakers disported themselves during the evenings? It was Phillis who first discovered the intruder. The shuttlecocks had become entangled, and fallen to the ground. As she stooped to pick them up, her quick eyes detected a coat-sleeve at the window; and an indefinable instinct, for she could not see his face, made her call out,-- "Mother, Mr. Drummond is in the parlor. Do go to him, while Dulce puts up her hair." And then she said, severely, "I always tell you not to wear your hair like that, Dulce. Look at Nan and me; we are quite unruffled; but yours is always coming down. If you have pretty hair, you need not call people's attention to it in this way." At which speech Dulce tossed her head and ran away, too much offended to answer. When Archie saw Mrs. Challoner crossing the lawn with the gait of a queen, he knew he was discovered: so he opened the window, and stepped out in the coolest possible way.