“Oh, I’m sure, quite a perfect person! though you don’t always think so, Stella; and twenty-three’s quite a nice age, that you can stand at for ever so long. And you are a couple of very impudent girls to face it out to me so, who have come all this way for your good, just to warn you. Oh, if you don’t know what people say, I do! I have had it hot all round for far more innocent things; but I’ve got Tom always to stand by me. Who’s going to stand by you when it gets told all about how you went out with Charlie Somers and Algy Scott all by yourself in a boat, and didn’t come back till morning? You think perhaps it won’t be known? Why, it’s half over the country already; the men are all laughing about it in their clubs; they are saying which of ’em was it who played gooseberry? They aren’t the sort of men to play gooseberry, neither Algy nor Charlie. The old father will have to come down strong----” Poor Stella looked up at her sister with distracted eyes. “Oh, Kate, what does she mean? What does she mean?” she cried. “We don’t want to know what she means,” cried Katherine, putting her arms round her sister. “She speaks her own language, not one that we understand. Stella, Stella dear, don’t take any notice. What are the men in the clubs to you?” “I’d like to know,” said Mrs. Seton with a laugh, “which of us can afford to think like that of the men in the clubs. Why, it’s there that everything comes from. A good joke or a good story, that’s what they live by--they tell each other everything! Who would care to have them, or who would ask them out, and stand their impudence if they hadn’t always the very last bit of gossip at their fingers’ ends? And this is such a delicious story, don’t you know? Charlie Somers and Algy Scott off in a little pleasure yacht with a millionaire’s daughter, and kept her out all night, by Jove, in a gale of wind to make everything nice! And now the thing is to see how far the old father will go. He’ll have to do something big, don’t you know? but whether Charlie or Algy is to be the happy man----” “Kate!” said Stella with a scream, hiding her head on her sister’s shoulder. “Take me away! Oh, hide me somewhere! Don’t let me see anyone--anyone! Oh, what have I done--what have I done, that anything so dreadful should come to me.” “You have done nothing, Stella, except a little folly, childish folly, that meant nothing. Will you let her alone, please? You have done enough harm here. It was you who brought those--those very vulgar young men to this house.” Even Stella lifted her tearful face in consternation at Katherine’s boldness, and Mrs. Seton uttered a shriek of dismay. “What next--what next? Vulgar young men! The very flower of the country, the finest young fellows going. You’ve taken leave of your senses, I think. And to this house--oh, my goodness, what fun it is!--how they will laugh! To _this_ house----”