When Ernest woke on the morning after the ball it was ten o’clock, and he had a severe headache. This—the headache—was his first impression, but presently his eye fell upon a withering red rose that lay upon the dressing-table, and he smiled. Then followed reflections, those confounded reflections that always dog the heels of everything pleasant in life, and he ceased to smile. In the end he yawned and got up. When he reached the sitting-room, which looked cool and pleasant in contrast to the hot July sunshine that beat upon the little patch of bare turf in front of the house, and the glittering sea beyond, he found that the others had done their breakfast. Jeremy had gone out, but his sister was there, looking a little pale, no doubt from the late hours of the previous night. “Good-morning, Doll!” “Good-morning, Ernest,” she answered, rather coldly. “I have been keeping your tea as warm as I can, but I’m afraid it is getting cold.” “You are a good Samaritan, Doll. I’ve got such a head! perhaps the tea will make it better.” She smiled as she gave it to him; had she spoken what was in her mind, she would have answered that she had “such a heart.” He drank the tea, and apparently felt better for it, for presently he asked her, in comparatively cheerful tones, how she liked the dance. “O, very well, thank you, Ernest: how did you like it?” “O, awfully! I say, Doll!” “Yes, Ernest.” “Isn’t she lovely?” “Who, Ernest?” “Who! why, Eva Ceswick, of course.” “Yes, Ernest, she is very lovely.” There was something about her tone that was not encouraging; at any rate he did not pursue the subject. “Where is Jeremy?” he asked next. “He has gone out.” Presently, Ernest, having finished his second cup of tea, went out too, and came across Jeremy mooning about the yard. “Hullo, my hearty! and how are you after your dissipations?” “All right, thank you,” answered Jeremy, sulkily. Ernest glanced up quickly. The voice was the voice of Jeremy, but the tones were not his tones. “What is up, old chap?” he said, slipping his arm through his friend’s. “Nothing.” “O yes, there is, though. What is it? Out with it? I am a splendid father confessor.” Jeremy freed his arm, and remained sulkier than ever. Ernest looked hurt, and the look softened the other. “Well, of course, if you won’t tell me, there is nothing more to be said;” and he prepared to move off. “As though you didn’t know!” “Upon my honour I don’t.” “Then if you’ll come in here, I will tell you;” and Jeremy opened the door of the little outhouse, where he stuffed his birds and kept his gun and collection of eggs and butterflies, and motioned Ernest majestically in. He entered and seated himself upon the stuffing-table, gazing abstractedly at a bittern that Jeremy had shot about the time that this story opened, and which was now very moth-eaten, and waved one melancholy leg in the air in a way meant to be imposing, but only succeeded in being grotesque.