In vain did Mrs. Rolleston represent that they were out sleighing and skating together most days without his objecting.

“This was quite different—­this was a public party—­people would say they were engaged.  He never had seen the good of their being so inseparable, but of course, his opinion on the subject had never been considered,” etc.,—­which last remark was rather uncalled for, as few heads of families have their womankind in better order than Colonel Rolleston.

A straw will show which way the wind blows.  His wife listened with some uneasiness, for she had always hoped the Colonel tacitly approved the attachment between their respective relatives, which to her appeared so evident.  She could only trust this was but a pettish effusion from their prolonged absence, and determined to guard against such causes of offence for the future.

But still they did not come.  It was dark—­it was dinner-time—­it really was too bad.  At last a faint tinkle of sleigh-bells was followed by a slight commotion in the hall.  The servant was assisting Bertie into the smoking-room, for he elected to lie on the sofa there, and thus avoid the worry of questions and alarms.

Colonel Rolleston was too grand and angry to evince any curiosity by coming out, and Mrs. Rolleston, after receiving a hasty explanation from Cecil, sent her back to the drawing-room, and took charge of her brother, who was having his boot cut off, and in considerable pain.

There was not much resemblance in character or sympathy between the brothers-in-law; but they had hitherto avoided clashing.  Now, however, the Colonel’s outraged feelings of propriety wound him up to the determination of administering a solemn rebuke to Du Meresq, and he stood on that coign of advantage, the hearthrug, waiting to deliver it.

Cecil came in for the first tide of wrath, somewhat to her surprise; but, dreading her companionship with Bertie being prohibited, exerted considerable tact to smooth her father down, and especially made light of the accident, which she perceived was an aggravation of the offence.

“Not content with making my daughter conspicuous, he hadn’t even the sense to keep out of scrapes himself,” etc.

Mrs. Rolleston glanced interrogatively at Cecil as they met on the stairs.  I don’t know what answer her countenance conveyed, but they made simultaneously the same suggestion,—­“Let us get Miss Prosody to dine down.”  They both knew that without the addition of an unoffending third the subject would be harped on all the evening.

Mrs. Rolleston was an excellent housekeeper; and the well-served repast, aided by the judicious conversation of the ladies, exercised a most soothing influence on the Colonel, who was rapidly attaining that harmless frame of mind in which, as the saying goes, “a child might play with him.”

But a sudden ring at the door-bell, followed by the announcement of the surgeon of the regiment, brought on a relapse.  What man does not hate being interrupted at dinner?  And the doctor’s report was sufficiently vague to re-kindle Cecil’s fears, and create uncomfortable misgivings in the mind of her step-mother.