‘Aunt Bel spoke to Mr. Harrington,’ said Rose, pettishly.

‘Asked him where he came from,’ Laxley continued his drawl.  ’He didn’t answer, so I thought it polite for another of the twenty to strike in.’

‘I must thank you expressly,’ said Evan, and achieved a cordial bow.

Rose gave Evan one of her bright looks, and then called the attention of Ferdinand Laxley to the fact that he had lost a particular bet made among them.

‘What bet?’ asked Laxley.  ‘About the profession?’

A stream of colour shot over Rose’s face.  Her eyes flew nervously from Laxley to Evan, and then to Drummond.  Laxley appeared pleased as a man who has made a witty sally:  Evan was outwardly calm, while Drummond replied to the mute appeal of Rose, by saying: 

’Yes; we’ve all lost.  But who could hit it?  The lady admits no sovereign in our sex.’

‘So you’ve been betting about me?’ said Aunt Bel.  ’I ’ll settle the dispute.  Let him who guessed “Latin” pocket the stakes, and, if I guess him, let him hand them over to me.’

‘Excellent!’ cried Rose.  ’One did guess “Latin,” Aunt Bel!  Now, tell us which one it was.’

‘Not you, my dear.  You guessed “temper."’

‘No! you dreadful Aunt Bel!’

‘Let me see,’ said Aunt Bel, seriously.  ’A young man would not marry a woman with Latin, but would not guess it the impediment.  Gentlemen moderately aged are mad enough to slip their heads under any yoke, but see the obstruction.  It was a man of forty guessed “Latin.”  I request the Hon. Hamilton Everard Jocelyn to confirm it.’

Amid laughter and exclamations Hamilton confessed himself the man who had guessed Latin to be the cause of Miss Current’s remaining an old maid; Rose, crying: 

‘You really are too clever, Aunt Bel!’

A divergence to other themes ensued, and then Miss Jenny Graine said:  ‘Isn’t Juley learning Latin?  I should like to join her while I’m here.’

‘And so should I,’ responded Rose.  ’My friend Evan is teaching her during the intervals of his arduous diplomatic labours.  Will you take us into your class, Evan?’

‘Don’t be silly, girls,’ interposed Aunt Bel.  ’Do you want to graduate for my state with your eyes open?’

Evan objected his poor qualifications as a tutor, and Aunt Bel remarked, that if Juley learnt Latin at all, she should have regular instruction.

‘I am quite satisfied,’ said Juley, quietly.

‘Of course you are,’ Rose snubbed her cousin.  ’So would anybody be.  But Mama really was talking of a tutor for Juley, if she could find one.  There’s a school at Bodley; but that’s too far for one of the men to come over.’

A school at Bodley! thought Evan, and his probationary years at the Cudford Establishment rose before him; and therewith, for the first time since his residence at Beckley, the figure of John Raikes.