"You'll catch it to-morrow, Miss Jane--at ten--in the library!" opined Master Cecil sagely. "I'll bet she'll smack you with the ruler." "Hold your tongue, Cecil, and come on to bed!" bawled Percy, "or you'll be the one to get smacked with the ruler." Miss Blythe had walked over to the window and was looking out with unseeing eyes into the gathering dusk. "It is true," she told herself forlornly. "I am poorer than any of the maids in the house. I hate it! Oh, how I _hate it all_!" She wiped away two or three rebellious tears on a grimy little pocket-handkerchief. A servant had entered and was somewhat noisily gathering the empty dishes onto a tray. "I see you've 'ad no tea, miss," she observed kindly. "Shan't I toast you a bit o' bread at the fire an' fetch some more jam?" "No, Susan, thank you; I must go down now. But you're very kind to have thought of it." Jane's smile was beautiful, and the warm-hearted Susan, for one, appreciated it. "They'd orto to be 'shamed o' theirsel's," she observed vaguely to the tea things, as the girl closed the door softly behind her. "An' she's pretty's a pink, an' that sweet-mannered! She'd orto marry a r'yal dook, that she 'ad; an' dress in di'mon's an' satings!" Susan was in the habit of solacing herself with yellow-covered romances in the scant leisure stolen from her duties as housemaid, and of late Miss Jane Evelyn had figured as the heroine of everyone of these tales in the honest damsel's rather crude imaginings. As Miss Blythe passed down the dimly lighted staircase on her way to her cousin's room, she was startled to the point of uttering a slight scream by a dark figure which darted out upon her from behind a tall suit of armor stationed on the landing. "O Reginald!" she exclaimed, "why will you play such baby tricks, now that you are nearly grown?" "'Nearly grown,' indeed!" echoed the tall youth in a displeased voice. "I am grown. Look at me--away over your head, Miss Jane! I say, give us a kiss, will you?" "No, indeed, I'll not! Get out of my way directly. I'm in a hurry!" "Oh, no, you've lots of time to talk to me," chuckled Reginald, planting his ungainly figure directly across the stair. "And you'll not go a step farther till you've paid toll. Do you know, Jane, you're growing deucedly pretty--upon my word!" "Impudence!" cried Jane sharply. "If you don't let me go this instant I'll call your mother." "If you do that," drawled the boy, wagging his head threateningly, "I'll tell the mater you were trying to kiss me. Then you'd catch it; she'd believe me every trip." By way of reply to this taunt Miss Blythe reached up and dealt the tall youth a stinging slap on his beardless cheek. "Tell her that a girl cuffed you, too, baby!" she retorted, and slipped past him like a shadow. "I'll pay you out for that, miss! See if I don't!" threatened Reginald. But Jane was safely out of sight and hearing, too.