“By the bye, I think it must have been her mother that I saw that morning when little Felix dragged me to a cigar-shop in quest of an ornamental crab-—a handsome, slatternly hag sort of woman, who might have been on the stage,” said Lance.

“Sells fishing-tackle, twine, all sorts,” came from Adrian.

“Have you been there?” asked his sister, rather disturbed.

“Of course!  All the fellows go!  It is the jolliest place for"-—he paused a moment—-"candies and ginger-beer.”

“I should have thought there were nicer places!” sighed Anna.

“You have yet to learn that there is a period of life when it is a joy to slip out of as much civilization as possible,” said Lance, putting his sentence in involved form so as to be the less understood by the boys.

“Did you say that Flight had got hold of them?” asked Clement.

“Hardly.  They are R.C.’s, it seems; and as to the Mother Butterfly, I should think there was not much to get hold of in her; but Mrs. Henderson takes interest in her marble-workers, and the girl is the sort of refined, impressible creature that one longs to save, if possible.  To-morrow I am going to put you all through your parts, Master Gerald, so don’t you be out of the way.”

“One submits to one’s fate,” said Gerald, “hoping that virtue may be its own reward, as it is in the matter of ‘The Inspector’s Tour’, which the ‘Censor’ accepts, really enthusiastically for a paper, though the Mouse-trap would have found it-—what shall I say?-—a weasel in their snare.”

“Does it indeed?” cried Anna, delighted.  “I saw there was a letter by this last post.”

“Aye-—invites more from the same pen,” he replied lazily.

“Too much of weasel for the ‘Pursuivant’ even?” said Geraldine.

“Yes,” said Lance; “these young things are apt to tear our old traps and flags to pieces.  By the bye, who is this Captain Armytage, who happily will limit Purser Briggs to ‘We split, we split, we split,’ or something analogous?”

“I believe,” said Gerald, “that he joined the Wills-of-the-Wisp, that company which was got up by Sir Lewis Willingham, and played at Devereux Castle a year or two ago.  Some one told me they were wonderfully effective for amateurs.”

“That explains the acquaintance with Lady Merrifield,” said Mrs. Grinstead.

“Oh, yes,” said Anna.  “Mysie told me all about it; and how Mr. David Merrifield married the nicest of them all, and how much they liked this Captain Armytage.”

“Was not Mysie there when he arrived?”

“No, she was gone to see the Henderson children, but Gillian looked a whole sheaf of daggers at him.  You know what black brows Gillian has, and she drew them down like thunder,” and Anna imitated as well as her fair open brows would permit, “turning as red as fire all the time.”

“That certainly means something,” said Geraldine, laughing.