"She is not in the least pretty!" she said, with hasty venom, her old hand shaking. "No, but fetching--and a good girl. She worships her Bobbie, and she's sending him away for a year." "I won't allow it!" cried Lady Niton. "He sha'n't go." Sir James shrugged his shoulders. "These are domestic brawls--I decline them. Ah!" He turned to the window, opening it wide. She did not move. He made a sign, and two of the three persons who had just appeared on the lawn came running toward the house. Diana loitered behind. Lady Niton looked at the two young faces as they reached her side--the mingling of laughter and anxiety in the girl's, of pride and embarrassment in Bobbie's. "You sha'n't go to Berlin!" she said to him, vehemently, as she just allowed him to take her hand. "Dear Lady Niton!--I must." "You sha'n't!--I tell you! I've got you a place in London--a, thousand times, better than your fool of an uncle could ever get you. Uncle, indeed! Read that letter!" She tossed him one from her bag. Bobbie read, while Lady Niton stared hard at the girl. Presently Bobbie began to gasp. "Well, upon my word!"--he put the letter down--"upon my word!"' He turned to his sweetheart. "Ettie!--you marry me in a month!--mind that! Hang Berlin! I scorn their mean proposals. London requires me." He drew himself up. "But first" (he looked at Lady Niton, his flushed face twitching a little) "justice!" he said, peremptorily--"justice on the chief offender." And walking across to her, he stooped and kissed her. Then he beckoned to Ettie to do the same. Very shyly the girl ventured; very stoically the victim, submitted. Whereupon, Bobbie subsided, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and a violent quarrel began immediately between him and Lady Niton on the subject of the part of London in which he and Ettie were to live. Fiercely the conflict waxed and waned, while the young girl's soft irrepressible laughter filled up all the gaps and like a rushing stream carried away the detritus--the tempers and rancors and scorns--left by former convulsions. * * * * * Meanwhile, Diana and Sir James paced the garden. He saw that she was silent and absent-minded, and guessed uneasily at the cause. It was impossible that any woman of her type, who had gone through the experience that she had, should remain unmoved by the accounts now current as to Oliver Marsham's state. As they returned across the lawn to the house the two lovers came out to meet them. Sir James saw the look with which Diana watched them coming. It seemed to him one of the sweetest and one of the most piteous he had ever seen on a human face. "I shall descend upon you next week," said Lady Niton abruptly, as Diana made her farewells. "I shall be at Tallyn."