“What do the lords and ladies drink with their suppers?” asked Arabella, as Missy smiled and blushed. But the farmer cried, “Their dinners, she means; I'll warrant they dine late every night o' their lives.” Missy nodded to this. “But what do they drink with their dinners?” repeated Arabella. “Oh, champagne.” “What else?” “What else? Oh! claret, and port, and sherry wine. And beer and spirits for them that prefers 'em!” “All that with their dinners?” “Rather! I should think they did. The whole lot, one after the other!” “What! Beer and brandy and sherry wine?” Arabella's incredulity was disagreeably apparent. “Yes, everything you can think of; but look here, if you don't want to believe me, you needn't, you know!” said Missy, turning as red as her fringe as she stared the other girl full in the eyes across the supper-table. In the awkward pause following John William turned and glared furiously at his sister; but it was their father who cleared the air by saying mildly: “Arabella, my dear, I'm afraid you don't know a joke when you hear one.” Then Arabella coloured in her turn. “Do you mean to say you were joking, Missy?” she leant forward to ask; as though she could no more believe this than recent statements. But Missy had given one quick glance at Mr. Teesdale, and then, with a little gasp, had burst into an immoderate fit of laughter. “Of course I was,” she cried out as soon as she could speak; “of course I was joking—you old silly!” CHAPTER VII.—MOONLIGHT SPORT. So the first few days were largely spent in teaching Missy to shoot. A very plucky pupil she made, too, if not a particularly apt one; but head and chief of her sporting qualities was her enthusiasm. That was intense. The girl was never happy without a gun in her hand. So far as safety went, she took palpable pains to follow every injunction in the matter of full-cock and half-cock, and laid to heart all the rules given her for the carrying and handling of a loaded firearm. Thus, no one feared her prowling about the farm on tiptoe with John William's double-barrels pointing admirably to earth; least of all, the sparrows and parrots which she never hit. Old Teesdale would go with her and stand chuckling at her side when she missed a sparrow sitting; once he snatched the smoking gun from her, and with the other barrel picked off the same small bird on the wing. Then there was much practice at folded newspapers, of which Missy could sometimes make a sieve, at her own range; and altogether these two shots enjoyed themselves. Certainly it was a sight to see them together—the weak-kneed old man, who could shoot so cleverly still, when he had a mind, and the jaunty young woman who was all slang and fun and rollicking good-nature, plus a cockney lust for blood and feathers.