“Where’s a book?” cried Algy Scott, who sat by in the luxury of his convalescence. “Let’s try; I don’t believe any of you fellows could spell this any more than Miss Stella--here you are--sesquipedalian. Now, Miss Tredgold, there is your chance.” Stella put her pretty head on one side, and her hands behind her. This was a sort of thing which she understood better than University Extension. “S-e-s,” she began, and then broke off. “Oh, what is the next syllable? Break it down into little, quite little syllables--_quip_--I know that, q-u-i-p. There, oh, help me, help me, someone!” There was quite a crush round the little shining, charming figure, as she turned from one to another in pretended distress, holding out her pretty hands. And then there were several tries, artificially unsuccessful, and the greatest merriment in the knot which surrounded Stella, thinking it all “great fun.” The Earl, with a smile on his face which was not so superior as he thought, but a little tinged by the sense of being “out of it,” was edged outside of this laughing circle, and Lady Mary came and placed her arm within his to console him. The brother and sister lingered for a moment looking on with a disappointed chill, though they were so superior; but it became clear to his lordship from that moment, though with a little envy in the midst of the shock and disapproval, that Stella Tredgold, unable to spell and laughing over it with all those fellows, was not the heroine for him. Lady Jane, indeed, would have been both angry and disappointed had the case turned out otherwise; for her nephew was not poor and did not stand in need of any _mésalliance_, whereas she had planned the whole affair for Charlie Somers’ benefit and no other. And, indeed, the plan worked very well. Sir Charles had no objection at all to the _rôle_ assigned him. Stella did not require to be approached with any show of deference or devotion; she was quite willing to be treated as a chum, to respond to a call more curt than reverential. “I say, come on and see the horses.” “Look here, Miss Tredgold, let’s have a stroll before lunch.” “Come along and look at the puppies.” These were the kind of invitations addressed to her; and Stella came along tripping, buttoning up her jacket, putting on a cap, the first she could find, upon her fluffy hair. She was _bon camarade_, and did not “go in for sentiment.” It was she who was the first to call him Charlie, as she had been on the eve of doing several times in the Lottie Seton days, which now looked like the age before the Flood to this pair. “Fancy only knowing you through that woman,” cried Stella; “and you should have heard how she bullied me after that night of the sail!” “Jealous,” said Sir Charles in his moustache. “Never likes to lose any fellow she knows.” “But she was not losing you!” cried Stella with much innocence. “What harm could it do to her that you spent one evening with--anyone else?”