that he could not bear to be in them, and had been out of doors almost all the time.  Indeed, he was afraid he had disappointed the housekeeper by not complimenting her as she deserved, for the freezing dismal order in which she kept everything.  ‘And really,’ said he, ’I must go again to-morrow and make up for it, and Emily, you must come with me and try to devise something to make the unhappy place less like the abode of the Prince of the Black Islands.’

Emily willingly promised to go, and she went on talking to him, and telling him whom he was to meet on the next day, when an unusual silence making her look up, she beheld him more than half asleep.

Reginald fidgeted and sighed, and Maurice grew graver and graver as they thought of the wasps.  Maurice wanted to take a nest entire, and began explaining his plan to Claude.

’You see, Claude, burning some straw and then digging, spoils the combs, as Wat does it; now I have got some puff-balls and sulphur to put into the hole, and set fire to them with a lucifer match, so as to stifle the wasps, and then dig them out quietly to-morrow morning.’

‘It is all of no use, if that Rotherwood will do nothing but sleep,’ said Reginald, in a disconsolate tone.

‘You should not have made him get up at four,’ said Emily.

‘Who!  I?’ exclaimed the Marquis.  ’I never was wider awake.  What are you waiting for, Reginald?  I thought you were going to take wasps’ nests.’

‘You are much too tired, I am sure,’ said Emily.

‘Tired! not in the least, I have done nothing to-day to tire me,’ said Lord Rotherwood, walking up and down the room to keep himself awake.

The whole party went out, and found Wat Greenwood waiting for them with a bundle of straw, a spade, and a little gunpowder.  Maurice carried a basket containing all his preparations, on which Wat looked with supreme contempt, telling him that his puffs were too green to make a smeech.  Maurice, not condescending to argue the point, ran on to a nest which Reginald had marked on one of the green banks of the ancient moat.

’Take care that the wasps are all come in; mind what you are about, Maurice,’ called his father.

‘Master Maurice,’ shouted Wat, ‘you had better take a green bough.’

‘Never mind, Wat,’ said Lord Rotherwood, ’he would not stay long enough to use it if he had it.’

Reginald ran after Maurice, who had just reached the nest.

’There is one coming in, the evening is so warm they are not quiet yet.’

‘I’ll quiet them,’ said Maurice, kneeling down, and putting his first puff-ball into the hole.

Reginald stood by with a sly smile, as he pulled a branch off a neighbouring filbert-tree.  The next moment Maurice gave a sudden yell, ‘The wasps! the wasps!’ and jumping up, and tripping at his first step, rolled down the bank, and landed safely at Lord Rotherwood’s feet.  The shouts of laughter were loud, but he regarded them not, and as soon as he recovered his feet, rushed past his sisters, and never stopped till he reached the house.  Redgie stood alone, in the midst of a cloud of wasps, beating them off with a bough, roaring with laughter, and calling Wat to bring the straw to burn them.