"Well, I don't call it exactly young," said Aline, smiling. "Still, I thought your friend was older, more Lady O'Brien's contemporary." "Oh! he knew her when he was quite a young fellow and she was a married woman, long after she took Peter," said Hugh. "Dear boy!" said Aline. "Peter!" "Well, doesn't she always call him so herself?" pleaded Hugh, unabashed. "Why, he has a son no older than you, Aline," said Cusha, the younger of the twins. "Oh, a son!" said Aline; "and where is he?" "They don't know. He went with a party to Kabul, and the whole of them disappeared. 'Awkins thinks it as likely as not that he was tortured and killed." "Cusha!" cried I, "have you been talking to Hawkins? Not 'Awkins, remember." "'Awkins he calls himself, and I did talk to him a little, wee bit." "The twins," said Hugh, with a grin, "think no end of Hawkins. Why, they're always talking to him, and the General knows, and says Hawkins will teach them nothing but good. Why, he's drilling them now, and he's teaching them to ride! He says they're the gamiest little ladies he ever heard tell on." "I hope they haven't been running wild," said Aline, with an apprehensive glance at me. However, I was sure the General was right, and that his soldier-servant was fit to be trusted with our little sisters. A day or two later the General and Lady O'Brien met at Brandon, and such a delightful interchange there was of reminiscence and compliment that we younger ones hardly got in a word. Esther, I thought, after her absence, looked listless and preoccupied. I was very anxious to know how affairs were going with her, and got her to myself after a while. But she had really nothing to tell. Her lover had wished to write to her during their absence from each other, but she had forbidden it, and then, woman-like, she was half-sorry. "He hates the secrecy as much as I do," she said, wringing her hands, "and is always anxious to speak. Now I think I shall let him. I do not feel that we are so helpless now that I have gran."--by this name she had come to call Lady O'Brien,--"and I am sure the General would help us if we needed help. I used to feel that we were only a parcel of friendless girls and children caught in the net of that wicked old spider who ruined us." She shuddered violently. "I dream of Sir Rupert at nights, of him and that wicked man of his--terrible dreams of injury and death to my Harry. I can't make him see his grandfather as I see him, nor believe the necessity of watching him as one would watch a wild beast. I have the fear for two, the loneliness and the helplessness." "Poor Essie!" I said; "you are all nerves. Why, how you tremble! This must be put a stop to, Essie, or I'll speak myself. After all, what can Sir Rupert do except turn his grandson adrift? We are in a law-abiding country, more or less, within reach of police and magistrates, and the strong arm of the law generally. You are making yourself nightmares, darling."