"Is that Jockie?" said Mrs. Urquhart sweetly. "My dear girl, we have just been talking with the Rector. He was quite anxious about you. It is getting dark. Have you been on the river?" "She has been with me," said Austin, with pride in his tone. "So I gather. Well, we must not keep you. I suppose you have heard that Sidney returns to-morrow with poor Miss Pembroke? It is such a sad blow—that the baths have done her no good. I expect Sidney will make her home with her now. It will be very nice for her if she does so, as she will be able to help her a good deal." "Sidney helps everyone," said Jockie with sudden heat. "The house is happy that has her, and those are fools who oust her from their lives." "Hear, hear!" muttered the Major. His wife responded with dangerous sweetness: "You are a warm-hearted champion, Jockie. I wish, for your own sake, that Sidney could be more with you. You certainly want someone to look after you. Good-night. The sooner you get home the better. Your poor cousin is much harassed by these late expeditions." Austin was about to speak, but Jockie slipped her arm into his and dragged him on. "Don't explain or protest. It will only be wasted on her. We won't spoil our evening by a wordy combat. Oh, Austin, do you think we shall look back to this lovely evening for the rest of our lives as a red letter day? I shall never forget it, will you?" Austin insisted upon going into Mr. Borlace's study and informing the Rector of what had taken place. His distress and agitation was quite alarming, but Jockie laughed and soothed him into a peaceful state of mind. "Don't you be afraid of Mrs. de Cressiers. Austin and I will manage her all right; and I'm not a child, Cousin John. And you can pretend you know nothing about it, if you would rather not. It has nothing to do with you, has it? And we have settled it up on the river, not even in this house, so you can't be in any way responsible." She talked to him in the way that a modern girl would; as if she, and she alone, were the only one responsible for her future. And Mr. Borlace, who did not understand girls, and had come to look upon Jockie as a very original specimen of her race, at last sat back in his chair with a resigned sigh. "Well, you must 'gang your own gait'; only don't ask me to express my opinion upon such an altogether unexpected and unsuitable union." And then Austin laughed, shook him warmly by the hand, and departed, wondering how he would get through the coming interview with his mother. Manlike, he hated scenes, and he knew that his mother's hopes did not rest upon Jockie as a daughter-in-law. He went straight to her boudoir, and found her writing letters at her davenport. "Now, mother," he said gaily, "when do you intend to get old, and sit in an arm-chair before the fire knitting for the poor? Isn't that the role of all good old ladies?" "Not when the thermometer stands at seventy-eight," said his mother dryly.