"Oh, he is dead _now_, I'm certain; but I should have liked to bring him home. His leg was broken, and I chased him right through the rushes down below in the furze brake at Coole." Sensation! It is too late to redeem his error. "Murder wol out, that see we day by day," says Chaucer, and now, indeed, all the fat is in the fire. The two old ladies draw back from him and turn mute eyes of grief upon each other, while Kit and Monica stare with heavy reproach upon their guilty brother. The guilty brother returns their glance with interest, and then Miss Priscilla speaks. "So you went into Coole, after all," she says. "Oh, Terence!" "I couldn't help it," says Terence, wrathfully. "I wasn't going to let the rabbit go for the sake of a mere whim." "_A mere whim!_" Words fail me to convey Miss Priscilla's indignation. "Are you destitute of heart, boy, that you talk thus lightly of a family insult? Oh! shame, shame!" "I'm very sorry if I have made you unhappy," says Terence, who is really a very good boy and fond. "I didn't mean it, _indeed_." But Miss Priscilla appears quite broken-hearted. "To dream of bringing a rabbit of Coole into this house!" she says, with quite a catch in her voice that brings Miss Penelope into prominent play. "If, when you came to the stile that leads into Moyne," she says, "you had said to yourself, 'My good aunt, who loves me so dearly, would not wish me to enter this forbidden land,' you would, I _hope_, have paused, and come back here. But you did not. You went recklessly on, and trod upon ground where your foot is _unwelcome_." "Dear Aunt Penelope, do not talk like that," says Monica, entreatingly, slipping her arm around her. "And this to his poor old aunts who love him so fondly!" says Miss Penelope, in so dismal a voice that the two Misses Blake break into sobs. "It wouldn't seem so bad if he hadn't equivocated about it," says Miss Priscilla, presently. "But he purposely led us to believe that he had not set his foot on that detested land." "He has indeed been much to blame," says Miss Penelope. "Terence, what was it it said about _lying_ in the Bible this morning? I am afraid your chapter to-day--that awful chapter about Ananias and Sapphira--did you little good." A growl from Terence. "He will be more careful for the future, auntie," says Monica, interpreting the growl after her own gentle fashion. "And now you will forgive him, won't you? After all, any one, even _you_, might forget about forbidden lands, if you were racing after a rabbit." The idea of the Misses Blake racing through rushes and gorse after a rabbit strikes Kit as so comical that she forgets everything, and laughs aloud. And then the Misses Blake, who are not altogether without a sense of fun, catching "the humor of it," laugh too, and, drying their eyes, give Terence to understand that he is forgiven. Just at this moment the door is opened, and Timothy enters, bearing not only an air of mystery with him, but a large envelope.