Master and Maid

ly getting more and more

can't say I'm timid. You can't say I couldn't ride any mount they choose to give me at that old school. Look here, Tony, suppose they said, 'You may play cricket--oh, yes, at the nets with a wee little junior boy to bowl to you; but no matches, no playing with people who play as well as you do'--would you say 'Thank you'? And that's precisely what you offer me. Let me tell you I ride just as well as you play cricket--blue and all; and to please you I've even gone pounding round that ridiculous racecourse with half a dozen other girls who sit a horse like a sack of potatoes, who'd be off at every bounce but for the pommel. D'you think I call that riding? Oh, Tony, dear, if I could just have one good gallop across country after the hounds, I'd be a better girl--much nicer and easier to get on with.""I don't find you particularly hard to get on with as it is.""Other people do, though"--Lallie's conscience pricked her as to Miss Foster--"and I dare say I'm often a great nuisance; but once let me work the steam off on the back of a good horse and I'd be an angel. Just you let me go out with the hounds on Thursday and you'll see.""Lallie, my child, don't. I would if I could, but I simply dare not. Your father would never forgive me. It was quite different last winter when he was there himself to look after you.""My dear, good man, a hunting field isn't like the 'croc' of a girls' school. No one can 'look after' anybody else. You either ride straight or you potter, or you rush your fences and get in people's way. But whatever you do you're on your own. If you come a bad smash there's always a hurdle to lay you on, and a doctor and a farmhouse somewhere about. If you think Dad kept me in his pocket three days a week throughout the hunting season all these years, you've a more fertile imagination than I gave you credit for, and Dad would be the first to disillusion you. We went to the meets together, and after that we saw precious little of one another.""What about riding home?""Hardly ever did we come home together. Sometimes he got home first, sometimes I did; and whichever of us was first in got the bath, and the other was pretty sure to come pounding at the door before the early bird was out of it. You can't chaperon people out hunting. Why, by the time I'd been out three times here, I'd know the whole field, and you'd be perfectly happy knowing I was among friends."Lallie sat forward in her chair gazing eagerly at Tony, who said nothing at all; but from the expression of his face it might have been gathered that this prediction of her speedy intimacy with all the field gave him no satisfaction whatever."Well, Tony?" she demanded impatiently."I'm sorry, but it's impossible. You can write to Fitz if you like and ask him to cable his opinion.""No, indeed. I'll write and tell him that unless he cables forbidding me, I'm going to hunt. Dad will always do the easiest thing, and I know will never bother to cable forbidding me to do a thing I've done for years."Lallie's voice was almost defiant, and poor Tony looked very pained, but he said nothing; and after a minute's silence she continued in a more conciliatory tone:"Then in a fortnight's time from next mail if I don't hear, I may hunt?""You must give him three weeks, for he may be up country, and his mail takes days to reach him after the agent gets it.""And by that time there'll be a frost; I didn't think it of you, Tony, I really didn't. In this matter you out-Emileen Aunt Emileen herself."Tony rose."You have my leave to depart," he said, opening the door for her; "I've a lot of letters to write, and those chaps are coming to bridge after dinner, so I must do them now.""Well, I think you're horrid, and if a slate falls on my head and kills me when I'm out walking, just you reflect how nice and safe I'd have been if I'd had my own way and been out in the open country.""I'll risk the slate," Tony remarked unfeelingly; but still he would not look at Lallie, who stood in the doorway gazing reproachfully at him."And you're going to play bridge and have a nice time while I sit solemnly in the drawing-room making a waistcoat for you, ungrateful man. You've never asked me to take a hand, and I play quite well.""You see, this is a club; we meet at each other's houses--there are no ladies----""Of all the monastical establishments I've ever come across this is the strictest, and you call Ireland a priest-ridden country.""Lallie, I must write my letters."At that moment Mr. Johns came into the hall, bearing a large and heavy book."Well, you deny me everything that keeps me out of mischief--on your own head be it," said Lallie rapidly, in low tones of ominous menace. Then, turning to the newcomer, she smiled a radiant welcome, exclaiming joyously: "You've brought your snapshots to show me! How kind of you! I'm badly in need of something to cheer me up. Come into the drawing-room, for Mr. Bevan is busy and Miss Foster's out, so we'll have it all to ourselves."With quite unnecessary violence Mr. Bevan rang the bell for Ford to take away tea. Yet, when Ford, looking rather aggrieved, had responded to his noisy summons and removed the tea-things with her customary quiet deftness, he did not sit down at once to deal with his correspondence. Instead, he went and stood in front of the fire staring at the Greuze girl who was so like Lallie.He ran his fingers through his smooth thick hair--a sure sign of men