“--Whether Yorke will like it,” went on Hamish, as though he had not halted in his sentence. And the pretty blush in Constance Channing’s face deepened to a glowing crimson. Tom made a whole heap of bullets at once, and showered them on to her. “So Hamish--be quiet, Tom!--you may inquire all over Helstonleigh to-morrow, whether any one wants a governess; a well-trained young lady of twenty-one, who can play, sing, and paint, speak really good English, and decent French, and has a smattering of German,” rattled on Constance, as if to cover her blushes. “I shall ask forty guineas a year. Do you think I shall get it?” “I think you ought to ask eighty,” said Arthur. “So I would, if I were thirty-one instead of twenty-one,” said Constance. “Oh dear! here am I, laughing and joking over it, but it is a serious thing to undertake--the instruction of the young. I hope I shall be enabled to do my duty in it. What’s that?” It was a merry, mocking laugh, which came from the outside of the window, and then a head of auburn hair, wild and entangled, was pushed up, and in burst Annabel, her saucy dark eyes dancing with delight. “You locked me out, but I have been outside the window and heard it all,” cried she, dancing before them in the most provoking manner. “Arthur can only be a paid clerk, and Constance is going to be a governess and get forty guineas a year, and if Tom doesn’t gain his exhibition he must turn bell-ringer to the college, for papa can’t pay for him at the university now!” “What do you deserve, you wicked little picture of deceit?” demanded Hamish. “Do you forget the old story of the listener who lost his ears?” “I always do listen whenever I can, and I always will,” avowed Annabel. “I have warned you so a hundred times over, and now I warn you again. I wish Tom _would_ turn bell-ringer! I’d make him ring a peal that should astonish Helstonleigh, the day Constance goes out as governess. Shan’t I have a fine time of it! It’s lessons for me now, morning, noon, and night,--she’s always worrying me; but, once let us get her back turned, and I shall have whole holiday! She may think I’ll do my lessons with her at night; but I won’t!” The boys began to chase her round the table. She was almost a match for all four--a troublesome, indulged, sunny-hearted child, who delighted in committing faults, that she might have the pleasure of avowing them. She flew out into the garden, first knocking over Constance’s paint-box, and some of them went after her.