The doll was put into the perambulator, and was wheeled about the room, while Mrs. Linley moved the chairs out of the way, and Randal attended with the open parasol—­under orders to “pretend that the sun was shining.”  Once more the sixpenny picture-book was neglected.  Mrs. Presty picked it up from the floor, determined by this time to hold it in reserve until her ungrateful grandchild reached years of discretion.  She put it in the bookcase between Byron’s “Don Juan” and Butler’s “Lives of the Saints.”  In the position which she now occupied, Linley was visible approaching Sydney again.  “Your own interests are seriously concerned,” he whispered, “in something that I have to tell you.”

Incapable of hearing what passed between them, Mrs. Presty could see that a secret understanding united her son-in-law and the governess.  She looked round cautiously at Mrs. Linley.

Kitty’s humor had changed; she was now eager to see the doll’s splendid clothes taken off and put on again.  “Come and look at it,” she said to Sydney; “I want you to enjoy my birthday as much as I do.”  Left by himself, Randal got rid of the parasol by putting it on a table near the door.  Mrs. Presty beckoned to him to join her at the further end of the room.

“I want you to do me a favor,” she began.

Glancing at Linley before she proceeded, Mrs. Presty took up a newspaper, and affected to be consulting Randal’s opinion on a passage which had attracted her attention.  “Your brother is looking our way,” she whispered:  “he mustn’t suspect that there is a secret between us.”

False pretenses of any kind invariably irritated Randal.  “What do you want me to do?” he asked sharply.

The reply only increased his perplexity.

“Observe Miss Westerfield and your brother.  Look at them now.”

Randal obeyed.

“What is there to look at?” he inquired.

“Can’t you see?”

“I see they are talking to each other.”

“They are talking confidentially; talking so that Mrs. Linley can’t hear them.  Look again.”

Randal fixed his eyes on Mrs. Presty, with an expression which showed his dislike of that lady a little too plainly.  Before he could answer what she had just said to him, his lively little niece hit on a new idea.  The sun was shining, the flowers were in their brightest beauty—­and the doll had not yet been taken into the garden!  Kitty at once led the way out; so completely preoccupied in steering the perambulator in a straight course that she forgot her uncle and the parasol.  Only waiting to remind her husband and Sydney that they were wasting the beautiful summer morning indoors, Mrs. Linley followed her daughter—­and innocently placed a fatal obstacle in Mrs. Presty’s way by leaving the room.  Having consulted each other by a look, Linley and the governess went out next.  Left alone with Randal, Mrs. Presty’s anger, under the complete overthrow of her carefully-laid scheme, set restraint at defiance.