It is a world of disappointments, as John discovered when he reached the Dovecote.  The front door usually stood hospitably open.  Now it was not only shut, but locked, and yesterday’s mud still adorned the steps.  The parlor windows were closed and curtained, no picture of the pretty wife sewing on the piazza, in white, with a distracting little bow in her hair, or a bright-eyed hostess, smiling a shy welcome as she greeted her guest.  Nothing of the sort, for not a soul appeared but a sanginary-looking boy asleep under the current bushes.

“I’m afraid something has happened.  Step into the garden, Scott, while I look up Mrs. Brooke,” said John, alarmed at the silence and solitude.

Round the house he hurried, led by a pungent smell of burned sugar, and Mr. Scott strolled after him, with a queer look on his face.  He paused discreetly at a distance when Brooke disappeared, but he could both see and hear, and being a bachelor, enjoyed the prospect mightily.

In the kitchen reigned confusion and despair.  One edition of jelly was trickled from pot to pot, another lay upon the floor, and a third was burning gaily on the stove.  Lotty, with Teutonic phlegm, was calmly eating bread and currant wine, for the jelly was still in a hopelessly liquid state, while Mrs. Brooke, with her apron over her head, sat sobbing dismally.

“My dearest girl, what is the matter?” cried John, rushing in, with awful visions of scalded hands, sudden news of affliction, and secret consternation at the thought of the guest in the garden.

“Oh, John, I am so tired and hot and cross and worried!  I’ve been at it till I’m all worn out.  Do come and help me or I shall die!” and the exhausted housewife cast herself upon his breast, giving him a sweet welcome in every sense of the word, for her pinafore had been baptized at the same time as the floor.

“What worries you dear?  Has anything dreadful happened?” asked the anxious John, tenderly kissing the crown of the little cap, which was all askew.

“Yes,” sobbed Meg despairingly.

“Tell me quick, then.  Don’t cry.  I can bear anything better than that.  Out with it, love.”

“The . . .  The jelly won’t jell and I don’t know what to do!”

John Brooke laughed then as he never dared to laugh afterward, and the derisive Scott smiled involuntarily as he heard the hearty peal, which put the finishing stroke to poor Meg’s woe.

“Is that all?  Fling it out of the window, and don’t bother any more about it.  I’ll buy you quarts if you want it, but for heaven’s sake don’t have hysterics, for I’ve brought Jack Scott home to dinner, and . . .”

John got no further, for Meg cast him off, and clasped her hands with a tragic gesture as she fell into a chair, exclaiming in a tone of mingled indignation, reproach, and dismay . . .

“A man to dinner, and everything in a mess!  John Brooke, how could you do such a thing?”