'I should hope not!' exclaimed Hilary; 'but everybody knows you're a coward,' she added (she did not intend this remark to be taken seriously), 'and you're awfully lazy. Still, there are some things you might do!' 'If that means fielding long-leg till tea-time, I respectfully disagree. Irreverent girls, have you never been taught that a digesting uncle is a very solemn and sacred thing?' 'Now you are going to be idiotic again! But as to cricket--why, you must know that we never get a game now! And next summer I shall be too old to play!' 'I _never_ mean to be too old for cricket,' said Hilary, with conviction; 'but we've had none for weeks, uncle, positive weeks!' 'Quite right, too!' observed Uncle Lambert, sleepily. 'Not a game for girls--only spoil your hands--do you think I want a set of nieces with paws like so many glovers' signs?' 'That's utter nonsense,' said Hazel, calmly, 'because we always play in gloves. Mother makes us. At least, when we did play. Now the boys will only play soldiers, and, if they do happen to be inclined for a set at tennis, Clarence comes up and orders them off as pickets or outposts, or something!' 'But he's not Bismarck or Boulanger, is he? I always understood this was a free country.' 'You know what Guy and Jack are--they can't bear their visitor to think he isn't welcome.' 'Well, they seem to have made him feel very much at home--but it isn't my business; if they choose to declare the house in a state of siege, and turn the garden into a seat of war, I can't help it--I'd rather they wouldn't, but it's your mother's affair, not mine!' And he closed the discussion by lighting a cigarette, and relapsing into a contented silence. Uncle Lambert was short and stout, with a round red face, a heavy auburn moustache, and little green eyes which never seemed to notice anything. His nieces were fond of him, though they often wished he would pay them the occasional compliment of talking sensibly; but he never did, and he spent all his time at The Gables in elaborately doing nothing at all. Clarence Tinling had gone off in a decided huff--so much so indeed that he left his devoted army to carry out their rather misty manoeuvres without any help from him. He was beginning to find a falling-off in their docility of late, which was no doubt owing to their sisters; it was excessively annoying to him that those girls should be so difficult to convince of the protective value of a fortress, and especially that they should decline to take his own superior nerve and courage for granted. And the worst of it was, nothing but some imminent danger was ever likely to convince them, such were their prejudice and narrow-mindedness.