“I am trying to do what I can for my paper, Mr. Carr,” said the young man.  “The public is interested.”

Mr. Carr regarded him with peculiar hatred.

“Come here,” he said; “I have got something to say to you.”

The young man cautiously left the ranks of his fellows and came up on the porch.  Behind Mr. Carr, in the doorway, stood Drusilla and Flavilla.  The young man tried not to see them; he pretended not to.  But he flushed deeply.

“I want to know,” demanded Mr. Carr, “why the devil you are always around here blushing.  You’ve been around here blushing for a month, and I want to know why you do it.”

The youth stood speechless, features afire to the tips of his glowing ears.

“At first,” continued Mr. Carr, mercilessly, “I had a vague hope that you might perhaps be blushing for shame at your profession; I heard that you were young at it, and I was inclined to be sorry for you.  But I’m not sorry any more!”

The young man remained crimson and dumb.

“Confound it,” resumed Mr. Carr, “I want to know why the deuce you come and blush all over my lawn.  I won’t stand it!  I’ll not allow anybody to come blushing around me——­”

Indignation choked him; he turned on his heel to enter the house and beheld Flavilla and Drusilla regarding him, wide-eyed.

He went in, waving them away before him.

“I’ve taught that young pup a lesson,” he said with savage satisfaction.  “I’ll teach him to blush at me!  I’ll——­”

“But why,” asked Drusilla, “are you so cruel to Mr. Yates?  We like him.”

“Mr.—­Mr. Yates!” repeated her father, astonished.  “Is that his name?  And who told you?”

“He did,” said Drusilla, innocently.

“He—­that infernal newspaper bantam——­”

“Pa-pah! Please don’t say that about Mr. Yates.  He is really exceedingly kind and civil to us.  Every time you go to town on business he comes and sketches with us at——­”

“Oh,” said Mr. Carr, with the calm of deadly fury, “so he goes to Cooper’s Bluff with you when I’m away, does he?”

Flavilla said:  “He doesn’t exactly go with us; but he usually comes there to sketch.  He makes sketches for his newspaper.”

“Does he?” asked her father, grinding his teeth.

“Yes,” said Drusilla; “and he sketches so beautifully.  He made such perfectly charming drawings of Flavilla and of me, and he drew pictures of the house and gardens, and of all the servants, and”—­she laughed—­“I once caught a glimpse in his sketch-book of the funniest caricature of you——­”

The expression on her father’s face was so misleading in its terrible calm that she laughed again, innocently.

“It was not at all an offensive caricature, you know—­really it was not a caricature at all—­it was you—­just the way you stand and look at people when you are—­slightly—­annoyed——­”