The note was brief and contained a pressing invitation to meet the writer in Red Cliff Wood that morning, as soon after breakfast as she could. "I won't go," she said passionately. "I'll punish him!" Then, as if feeling that she would punish herself, the girl stood thinking, and then hastily crushed the note in her hand and walked to the window, to be apparently studying the pretty Warwickshire landscape as her brother and sister entered the room. "Morning, Leo, dear," said Mary Salis, the elder of the two; a fair English girl, grey-eyed, with high forehead and dark-brown, wavy hair, her type of countenance, allowing for feminine softness, being wonderfully like that of the robust, manly-looking clergyman who entered with his hand resting upon her shoulder. "Morning, Mary," said Leo quietly; and her handsome dark, almost Spanish, features seemed perfectly calm and inanimate as she returned her sister's salute; and then, in a half weary way, rather distantly held up her cheek for her brother to kiss. "Get out!" said the latter boisterously, as he caught the handsome girl by the shoulders, and tried to look in her eyes which avoided his. "No nonsense, Leo, my dear. No grumps. Give me a good, honest kiss. Lips--lips--lips." She raised her face in obedience to the emphatic demand, and then extricated herself from the two strong hands, to take her place at the table; while her sister, who seemed nervous and anxious, and kept glancing from one to the other, went to the head of the table, and began to make the tea. "You and I must not be on two sides, Leo, my dear," said the brother, smiling, but with a troubled look on his face, which seemed the reflection of that in the eyes of the elder sister. "I'm like a grandfather to you, my darling, and what I say and advise is for the best." "Do you wish to send me back to my room, Hartley?" said the girl, half rising. "Name of a little fiddler in France, no!" cried Hartley Salis. "There-- mum! I've done, dear. Breakfast! I'm as hungry as two curates this morning. What is it, Dally?" "Ammonegs, sir," said the little maid, who entered with a covered dish. "Didn't know Ammon ever laid 'em," muttered the curate, with a dry look at his sisters. "Now then: letters. Let me see." He proceeded to open his letters, and read and partook of his breakfast at the same time, making comments the while for the benefit of his sisters, when he thought the news would please. "Humph! May!" he said aloud; and then skimmed the ill-written, crabbed lines in silence. "Hang him!" he said to himself. "What mischief-making wretch inspired that?" and he re-read the letter. "`Not becoming of the sister of a clergyman to be seen so often in the hunting-field--better be engaged over parish work--excites a good deal of remark--hope shall not have to make this painful allusion again'--Humph!"