"What! Sir Geoffrey Beaudesert! how come you here? Why are you not flying for safety to your Yorkshire Castle? Or perhaps your parliamentary immunities extend to the slaughter of the innocents as well as the spoiling of the Egyptians!" Sir Geoffrey, very red in the face, came forward, bowing low. "Dear Lady Barbara, as you are strong, be merciful," he murmured imploringly. She gave him a look very unlike her ordinary merry defiance. "Merciful to _you_, who have no mercy even for the nursing mother and the suckling babe? Never! Lady Beachcombe is one of my ninety-and-nine dearest friends. I have just come from her. There was a sight to wring the heart of a monster! the weeping mother in one room and the wounded husband and father—" "Oh, tush!" interrupted Sir Geoffrey, recovering his aplomb. "’Twas the merest scratch. A strip torn from my lady’s kerchief would have bound it up and left something to spare—" "Don’t quarrel, you two," interposed Prue’s sweet, cooing voice. "Bab, come and sit beside granny and I’ll give you a cup of chocolate, while you tell her the latest news." "The latest news! There is so much, that the difficulty is to know where to begin. I went, this morning, to visit my interesting friend, Lady Beachcombe, and according to promise, to give her full description of the ball, including"—here she shook her finger at Prue—"all the doings and misdoings of her lord. I was prepared to be cautious with the dear creature, but instead of finding myself welcomed as a bearer of news, I heard so much that my poor head fairly swims with trying to remember it all." "Begin with the least exciting and work up by easy stages to a climax," suggested Peggie, edging toward her cousin and trying to attract her attention. "No, begin with the most thrilling while our nerves are strong enough to bear it," Prue proposed eagerly. "First, then," Lady Barbara began, highly enjoying her anticipated triumph, "there was a robbery at Marlborough House last night; and sure no common thief would venture to steal Her Majesty’s diamond necklace from the royal tiring-room." The general chorus of incredulity and indignation realized her expectations and she looked around with a mysterious smile. "No common thief, indeed; but Robin Freemantle, the highwayman, is out of jail, and ’tis said—indeed my authority can not be questioned—that he was among the maskers." Prue felt cold shivers trickling down her spine, but the consciousness that Sir Geoffrey was watching her, gave her strength to fix a smile upon her face and pour out the cup of chocolate with a steady hand. "Why do they think he had anything to do with this?" some one inquired. "Tell us everything quickly, Barbara, before we die of curiosity."