“And you weren’t so very severe then, were you, Daddy Jim? It’s only because I have annoyed you this morning that you bring all this up. As a matter of fact, Annie is far less mad about me than Ninsy is about you. She’s already flirting with Bob Granger. Anyone can see she’s perfectly happy. She’s been happy ever since she made a fool of me over Gladys’ ring. As long as a girl knows she’s put you in a ridiculous position, she’ll very soon console herself. No doubt she’ll make Granger marry her before the summer’s over. Ninsy is quite a different person. Annie and I take our little affair in precisely the same spirit. I am no more to blame than she is. But Ninsy’s case is different. Ninsy is seriously and desperately in love with you. And her invalid state makes the situation a much more embarrassing one. I think my position is infinitely less complicated than yours, brother Jim!” James Andersen’s face became convulsed with fury. He stretched out his arm towards his brother, and extended a threatening fore-finger. “Young man,” he cried, “I will _never_ forgive you for this!” Having uttered these words he rushed incontinently out of the room, and, bare-headed as he was, proceeded to stride across the fields, in a direction opposite from that which led to Nevilton. The younger brother shrugged his shoulders, drained his tea-cup, and meditatively lit another cigarette. The stone-works being closed, he had all the day before him in which to consider this unfortunate rupture. At the present moment, however, all he did was to call their landlady--the station-master’s buxom wife--and affably help her in the removal and washing up of the breakfast things. Luke was an adept in all household matters. His supple fingers and light feminine movements were equal to almost any task, and while occupied in such things his gay and humorous conversation made any companion of his labour an enviable person. Mrs. Round, their landlady, adored him. There was nothing she would not have done at his request; and Lizzie, Betty, and Polly, her three little daughters, loved him more than they loved their own father. Having concerned himself for more than an hour with these agreeable people, Luke took his hat and stick, and strolling lazily along the railroad-line railings, surveyed with inquisitive interest the motley group of persons who were waiting, on the further side, for the approach of a train. A little apart from the rest, seated on a bench beside a large empty basket, he observed the redoubtable Mrs. Fringe. Between this lady and himself there had existed for the last two years a sort of conspiracy of gossip. Like many other middle-aged women in Nevilton, Mrs. Fringe had made a pet and confidant of this attractive young man, who played, in spite of his mixed birth, a part almost analogous to that of an affable and ingratiating cadet of some noble family.