"It's pa!" they both exclaimed in a sort of astonished chorus. "Oh, pa, it's so hot," said the elder girl, regaining her _aplomb_ at once. But Connie, more indignant, only sighed; she felt, poor girl, that she had had her chance and lost it. There are moments in girls' lives when even a father is _de trop_. "What is it, old fellow?" cried Haggard with unusual condescension as he advanced. "I've been looking for you everywhere, Mr. Haggard. Here's a telegram for you. I hope it's no bad news," he added. The two girls, with considerable effort and many an ominous crack, covered, too, with rosy blushes, perhaps from their exertions, had now managed to regain their feet. "Oh, I do hope it's nothing dreadful," said the elder girl with pretty sympathy. Haggard, as he tore the envelope open and read the telegram with difficulty by the light of one of the Chinese lanterns, blurted out: "By Jove! Shirtings, the poor old governor's dead." There was considerable consternation. The Warren party hurried away, and though dancing went on, the two young hostesses, perhaps in their natural grief for their friend's loss, joined in it no more. As poor Connie wept herself to sleep that night in her sister's arms, she whispered her tale of sorrow into her ear. Her last words were, "Lottie, darling, I shall never, never forgive pa." CHAPTER VII. HAGGARD COMES INTO HIS OWN. Old Justice Haggard had died rather suddenly. He had been ailing for several weeks; as his son had remarked, his handwriting had been the first symptom of the breakdown. His articulation, too, had become thickened, and one evening he was found seated in his chair by his study fire speechless, his face painfully drawn on one side; within an hour he had peacefully passed away. The king was dead, long live the king. Reginald Haggard came into his own. But though Haggard had talked of settling down into a county magnate in the case of his father's death, when that event happened he failed to do so. "I couldn't stand it, you know. The dreadful dinners and the dreadful people would have finished me, I think," he had said. So after the funeral, Haggard returned to The Warren, but not before he had given the old steward final and definite instructions, which caused that worthy man's hair to almost stand on end.