“Ah, you are younger than me, Cosmo!” said Joan, more sadly than ever. Cosmo laughed. “Don’t you show me any airs on that ground,” he said. “Leave that to Agnes. She is two years older than I, and used always to say when we were children, that she was old enough to be my mother.” “But I am more than two years older than you, Cosmo,” said Joan. “How much, then--exactly?” asked Cosmo. “Three years and a whole month,” she answered. “Then you must be old enough to be my grandmother! But I don’t mean to be sat upon for that. Agnes gave me enough of that kind of thing!” Whether Joan began to feel a little jealous of Agnes, or only more interested in her, it would be hard to say, but Cosmo had now to answer a good many questions concerning her; and when Joan learned what a capable girl Agnes was, understanding Euclid and algebra, as Mr. Simon said, better than any boy, Cosmo himself included, he had ever had to teach, the earl’s daughter did feel a little pain at the heart because of the cotter’s. They reached at last the village and the doctor’s house, where, to Joan’s relief, the first person they met was Charles, to whom at once she told the main part of their adventure that day. He proposed just what Joan wished, and was by no means sorry at the turn things had taken--putting so much more of the game, as he called it, into his hands. Things were speedily arranged, all that was necessary told his father and sister, and Joan invited to stay to lunch, which was just ready. This she thought it better to do, especially as Jermyn and his sister would then walk home with her. What the doctor would say if he saw Mergwain, she did not venture to ask: she knew he would tell any number of stories to get her out of a scrape, while Cosmo would only do or endure anything, from thrashing her brother to being thrashed himself. A comfortable room was speedily prepared for Cosmo, and Jermyn made him go to bed at once. Nor did he allow him to see Joan again, for he told her he was asleep, and she had better not disturb him--which was not true--but might have been, for all the doctor knew as he had not been to see. Joan did not fall in with her brother for a week, and when she saw him he did not allude to the affair. What was in his mind she did not know for months. Always, however, he was ready to believe that the mantle of the wickedness of his fathers, which he had so righteously refused to put on, had fallen upon his sister instead. Only he had no proof. CHAPTER XXXIV. CATCH YOUR HORSE.