"You will come with Mrs. M'Intyre another time," she suggested kindly, "and have some more music? I would have asked you to stay longer to-day, but we haven't seen Mrs. Duff-Scott for such a long time--" "Oh, pray don't mention it," he interrupted stiffly. "I should have had to leave in any case, for my work is all behind-hand." "Ah, that is because we have been wasting your time!" "Not at all. I am only too happy to be of use--in the absence of your other friends." She would not notice this little sneer, but said good-bye and turned to walk upstairs. Paul, ashamed of himself, made an effort to detain her. "Is there anything I can do for you, Miss King?" he asked, gruffly indeed, but with an appeal for forbearance in his eyes. "Do you want your books changed or anything?" She stood on the bottom step of the stairs, and thought for a moment; and then she said, dropping her eyes, "I--I think _you_ have a book that I should like to borrow--if I might." "Most happy. What book is it?" "It is one of Thackeray's. I think you told us you had a complete edition of Thackeray that some one gave you for a birthday present. I scarcely know which volume it is, but it has something in it about a man being hanged--and a crowd--" She broke off with an embarrassed laugh, hearing how oddly it sounded. "You must mean the 'Sketches,'" he said. "There is a paper entitled 'Going to See a Man Hanged' in the 'London Sketches'--" "That is the book I mean." "All right--I'll get it and send it in to you at once--with pleasure." "Oh, _thank_ you. I'm _so_ much obliged to you. I'll take the greatest care of it," she assured him fervently. CHAPTER XVIII. THE FAIRY GODMOTHER. Elizabeth went upstairs at a run, and found Patty and Eleanor trying to make Mrs. Duff-Scott understand who Paul Brion was, what his father was, and his profession, and his character; how he had never been inside their doors until that afternoon, and how he had at last by mere accident come to be admitted and entertained. And Mrs. Duff-Scott, serene but imperious, was delivering some of her point-blank opinions upon the subject. "Don't encourage him, my dears--don't encourage him to come again," she was saying as Elizabeth entered the room. "He and his father are two very different people, whatever they may think." "We cannot help being grateful to him," said Patty sturdily. "He has done so much for us." "Dear child, that's nonsense. Girls _can't_ be grateful to young men--don't you see? It is out of the question. And now you have got _me_ to do things for you." "But he helped us when we had no one else." "Yes, that's all right, of course. No doubt it was a pleasure to him--a privilege--for _him_ to be grateful for rather than you. But--well, Elizabeth knows what I mean"--turning an expressive glance towards the discreet elder sister. Patty's eyes went in the same direction, and Elizabeth answered both of them at once.