Bella merely smiled, and Rebecca continued: “What I was going to say was this,--and, of course, you are at liberty to dissent from it if you like,--that, however clever a tactician your sister is, Sally and I saw her plan of campaign at once. Yes, dear, if you had been at dinner yesterday you 'd have heard a very silly project thrown out about my being sent over to fetch Tony Butler, under the escort of Mr. Norman Maitland. Not that it would have shocked me, or frightened me in the least,--I don't pretend that; but as Mr. Maitland had paid me certain attention at Lyle Abbey,--you look quite incredulous, my dear, but it is simply the fact; and so having, as I said, made these advances to me, there would have been considerable awkwardness in our going off together a drive of several hours without knowing--without any understanding--” She hesitated for the right word, and Bella added, “_A quoi s'en tenir_, in fact.” “I don't know exactly what that means, Bella; but, in plain English, I wished to be sure of what he intended. My dear child, though that smile becomes you vastly, it also seems to imply that you are laughing at my extreme simplicity, or my extreme vanity, or both.” Bella's smile faded slowly away; but a slight motion of the angle of the mouth showed that it was not without an effort she was grave. “I am quite aware,” resumed Beck, “that it requires some credulity to believe that one like myself could have attracted any notice when seen in the same company with Alice Lyle--Trafford, I mean--and her sister; but the caprice of men, my dear, will explain anything. At all events, the fact is there, whether one can explain it or not; and, to prove it, papa spoke to Mr. Maitland on the morning we came away from the Abbey; but so hurriedly--for the car was at the door, and we were seated on it--that all he could manage to say was, that if Mr. Maitland would come over to Port-Graham and satisfy him on certain points,--the usual ones, I suppose,--that--that, in short, the matter was one which did not offer insurmountable obstacles. All this sounds very strange to your ears, my dear, but it is strictly true, every word of it.” “I cannot doubt whatever you tell me,” said Bella; and now she spoke with a very marked gravity. “Away we went,” said Rebecca, who had now got into the sing-song tone of a regular narrator,--“away we went, our first care on getting back home being to prepare for Mr. Maitland's visit. We got the little green-room ready, and cleared everything out of the small store-closet at the back, and broke open a door between the two so as to make a dressing-room for him, and we had it neatly papered, and made it really very nice. We put up that water-colored sketch of Sally and myself making hay, and papa leaning over the gate; and the little drawing of papa receiving the French commander's sword on the quarter-deck of the 'Malabar:' in fact, it was as neat as could be,--but he never came. No, my dear,--never.” “How was that?”