Hopping in a threefold embrace on a slippery stair was hardly a safe pastime, and before Jasper had time to utter more than’ Holloa there! take care!’ there descended suddenly on him an avalanche of little girls, ‘knocking him off his feet, so that all promiscuously rolled down two or three steps together. Fergus and Primrose, who had somehow been holding on behind,’ remained upright, but nevertheless screaming. The shrieks of the fallen were, however, laughter. There was a soft rug below, and by the time the gentlemen had rushed out of the dining-room, and the ladies from the curtained recess, giggling below and legs above were chiefly apparent. ‘Any one hurt?’ was of course Lady Merrifield’s cry. ‘Oh no, mamma. Only we are so mixed up we can’t get up,’ called out Mysie. ‘Is this arm you or me?’ exclaimed Phyllis, following up the joke. ‘Come, sort yourselves, ladies and gentlemen,’ said Lord Rotherwood. ‘What’s this, a Fly’s wing?’ ‘No, it’s mine,’ cried Val, as his hand pulled her out, and the others extricated themselves, still laughing, go that they could hardly stand, and Fly declaring, ‘Oh, daddy, daddy, it is such fun! I am so glad we came,’ and taking a gratuitous leap into the air. ‘Every one to her taste,’ said Lady Merrifield, ‘I congratulate those to whom a compound tumble-down-stairs is felicity.’ ‘She has found her congenial element, you see,’ said her father, as the elders proceeded upstairs to their toilette.’ ‘Tis laughing-gas with her to be with other children, and the most laughingest of all are naturally yours, old Lily.’ Meanwhile Jasper, risen on his stocking soles, looked all over at the little figure, dressed old picture fashion, in the simplest white frock with blue sash, and short-cut hair tied back with blue. ‘Well, you are a jolly little girl,’ he said, ‘and a cool customer, too! What do you mean by knocking a fellow over the first time you see him?’ ‘And what do you mean by coming like a great--huge--big elephant in our way to stop up the stairs?’ demanded Fly, in return. ‘Do you mean to insinivate that ‘twas I that made you fall?’ said Jasper--‘I, that was quietly walking up the stairs, when down there came on me a shower--not cats and dogs, but worserer, far worserer! Why, I’m kilt! my nose is flat as a pancake, I shan’t recover my beauty all the evening for the great swells that are coming.’ ‘Jasper, Japs,’ called his mother’s warning voice, ‘you must come up and dress, for tea is going in.’ He obeyed, rushing two steps at a time; but meeting, at the bottom of the attic flight, his sister Gillian, he demanded, ‘Gill, what awfully jolly little girl have they got down there?’ ‘Why, Fly, of course, Lady Phyllis Devereux--’ ‘No, no, nothing swell, a comical little soul, with no nonsense about her, in a white thing.’ ‘Well, that’s Phyllis. There’s no one else there.’