“That’s what Paddy said because I kept her waiting nearly half an hour this afternoon. She was very uppish,” and again he smiled at the recollection, and Eileen gave him up. “You are quite incorrigible,” she said. “I might as well try and inspire Kitty,” and she patted the spaniel, now curled up beside them. “Perhaps, but it really isn’t worth while to worry now, it is? Everything’s so jolly, it would be a pity to spoil it. You’re so serious and solemn, Eileen. Paddy never bothers her head about any mortal thing—why do you?” “I expect I’m made that way. It would not do for everyone to be the same. Shall we go home now? We shall be just in time for tea.” He got up at once and shouldered his gun, starting ahead of her to clear the brambles and stones out of her path, and turning to give her his hand where the descent became difficult. Had it been Paddy they would have scrambled down at a breakneck pace together, and he would have given no thought at all to her progress, for the simple reason that she would only have scorned it if he had. But Eileen, somehow, was different. She was really quite as good a climber as Paddy, and probably a much surer one, but on the other hand she seemed more frail and dependent, and Jack liked helping her, even though he knew she would get along quite as well by herself. At the lodge gates they met the two aunts, and Eileen was promptly carried off to the Parsonage to tea, the two little ladies at once commencing to pour into her sympathetic ears an account of the sad fate of one of their favourite cats as they went along. “My dear, when we started out this afternoon,” began Miss Jane, “we heard a most heartrending cry in the bushes, and after hunting about, we found such a pitiful object. It was scarcely recognisable even to us.” “Not even to us,” echoed Miss Mary sadly. “It was actually poor dear Lionel, one of Lady Dudley’s last kittens,” continued Miss Jane, “and what do you think had happened to him?” “Was he caught in a trap!” asked Eileen. “Oh, far worse,” in a tearful voice. “Mary and I are feeling terribly upset about it.” “Yes; quite upset,” came the sad echo. “Has he singed the end of his tail?” asked Jack with due solemnity, “or has Lady Dudley been giving him a bad time because he stole her milk as usual?” “Worse, my dear Jack, worse still,” with a mournful shake of both heads. “He has fallen into a barrel of tar.” And the two little ladies stood still suddenly, to further impress the terrible nature of the calamity. “Oh, Christmas!” exclaimed Jack, unable to resist laughing, while Eileen asked most anxiously, “But he got out again?” “Yes, my dear, but think of the poor darling’s condition!” “What a home-coming!” said Jack irrelevantly. “He was coated all over with tar,” went on Miss Jane, now addressing Eileen only, and ignoring Jack with contempt, “and he had tried to clean himself, and of course, in licking his fur, had swallowed a lot of tar.”