"Mind? My dear Miss Rosebury, I'll go and sit outside on a gate and smoke if you like." "No, no," said the Reverend Arthur, mildly; "the green fly are rather gaining ground amongst my flowers, and I thought it would kill a few." "Dr Bolter is going to smoke his cigar here, where I am about to send in the coffee," said Miss Rosebury, very decidedly, and the Reverend Arthur directed an apologetic look at his old friend. "Hah!" ejaculated the little doctor, taking out his case, and selecting a cigar, "that's just the kind of social tyranny I like. A man, sir, is stronger than a woman in physical development, but weaker in the matter of making up his mind. I never am able to make up mine, and I am quite sure, Arthur, old fellow, that you are very weak in the matter of making up yours: thus, in steps the presiding genius of your house, and bids you do this, and you do it. Yes, Miss Rosebury, I am going to sit here and smoke and--" "I am ready with a light, Dr Bolter," said the little lady, standing close by with a box and a wax-match in her hands. "No, no, really, my dear madam, I could not think of beginning while you are here." _Scratch_! went the match; there was a flash from the composition, and then Miss Rosebury's plump taper little fingers held out the tiny wax-light, which was taken; there were a few puffs of bluish smoke, and Dr Bolter sank back in his chair, gazing at the door through which Miss Rosebury had passed. "Hah!" he ejaculated. "I shall have to be off to-morrow." "Oh, nonsense!" cried the Reverend Arthur. "I thought you would come and stay a month." "Stay a month!" cried the doctor. "Why, my dear boy, what should I be fit for afterwards if I did?" "Fit for, Harry?" "Yes, fit for. I should be totally spoiled. I should become a complete domestic sybarite, and no more fit to go back to my tasks in the Malay jungle than to fly. No, Arthur, old fellow, it would never do." "We shall keep you as long as you can stay," said the Reverend Arthur, smiling. "But seriously, did you not exaggerate about those young ladies?" "Not in the least, my dear boy, as far as regards one of them. The other--old Stuart's little lassie--seems to be all that is pretty and demure. But I don't suppose there is any harm in Helen Perowne. She is a very handsome girl of about twenty or one-and-twenty, and I suppose she has been kept shut up there by the old ladies, and probably, with the best intentions, treated like a child." "That must be rather a mistake," murmured the Reverend Arthur, dreamily. "A mistake, sir, decidedly. If you have sons or daughters never forget that they grow up to maturity; and if you wish to keep them caged up, let it be in a cage whose bars are composed of good training, confidence and belief in the principles you have sought to instil." "Yes, I quite agree with you, Harry."