Adrian replied with a gracious nod and gesture towards his straw hat, and in another moment Anna found him answering questions, and giving his own account of the adventure to the inquirer, who, she had little doubt, was a reporter, and carrying his head, if possible, higher in consequence as he told how Fergus Merrifield had lingered over his stones, and all the rest after his own version. She did not hear the whole, having had to answer the inquiries of one of the bicycle friends of the previous day, but when her attention was free she heard-- “And the young lady, Sir Adrian?” “Young lady! Thank goodness, we were not bothered with any of that sort.” “Indeed, Sir Adrian, I understood that there was a young lady, Miss Aurelia, that Master Merrifield was lamenting, as if she had met with a watery grave.” “Ha! ha! Aralia was only the name of a bit of fossil kind of a stick that Merrifield had us down there to find in the fossil forest. I’m sure I saw no forest, only bits of mud and stuff! But he found a bit, sure enough, and was ready to break his heart when he had to leave his bag behind him on the rock. Aralia a young lady! That’s a good one.” He forgathered with a school-fellow on the way home, and Anna heard little more. The next day, however, there arrived the daily local paper, addressed to Sir Adrian Vanderkist, Bart., and it was opened by him at breakfast-time. “I say! Look here! ‘Dangerous Accident in Anscombe. A Youthful Baronet in peril!’ What asses people are!” he added, with an odd access of the gratified shame of seeing himself for the first time in print. But he did not proceed to read aloud; there evidently was something he did not like, and he was very near pocketing it and rushing off headlong to school with it, if his aunt and Anna had not entreated or commanded for it, when he threw it over with an uncomplimentary epithet. “Just what I was afraid of when I saw the man talking to him!” exclaimed Anna. “Oh, listen! “‘The young Sir Adrian Vanderkist, at present residing at St. Andrew’s Rock with his aunt, Mrs. Grinstead, and the Rev. E. C. Underwood, and who is a pupil at Mrs. Edgar’s academy for young gentlemen, was, we are informed, involved in the most imminent danger, together with a son of General Sir Jasper Merrifield, K.G.C., a young gentleman whose remarkable scientific talent and taste appear to have occasioned the peril of the youthful party, from whence they were rescued by Gerald F. Underwood, Esq., of Vale Leston.’” “What’s all that?” said Gerald F. Underwood, Esquire, sauntering in and kissing his aunt. “Good-morning. How is Uncle Clement this morning?” “Much better; I think he will be up by and by,” answered Mrs. Grinstead. “What bosh have you got there? The reporters seized on their prey, eh?” “There’s Sir Jasper!” exclaimed Anna, who could see through the blinds from where she sat.