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different—if Lucilla had suffered ill-treatment at Mrs Amber's hands—I might have consented to keep her presence here a secret, but, as far as I can discover, she has never been ill-treated in her life!"
    "Oh, no, no!" Lucilla said quickly. "I never said that! But there is another kind of tyranny, ma'am! I can't explain what I mean, and perhaps you have never experienced it, but—but—"
    "I haven't experienced it, but I do know what you mean," Annis said. "It is the tyranny of the weak, isn't it? The weapons being tears, reproaches, vapours, and other such unscrupulous means which are employed by gentle, helpless women like your aunt!"
    "Oh, you do understand!" Lucilla exclaimed, her face lighting up.
    "Of course I do! Try, in your turn to understand what must be my feelings on this occasion! I couldn't reconcile it with my conscience, Lucilla, to hide you from your aunt." She silenced, by a raised finger, the outcry which rose to Lucilla's lips. "No, let me finish what I have to say! I am going to write to Mrs Amber asking her if she will permit you to stay with me for a few weeks. Ninian shall take my letter with him tomorrow, and I must trust that he will assure her that I am a very respectable creature, well-able to take care of you."
    "You may be sure I will, ma'am!" said Ninian enthusiastically. Doubt shook him, and his brow clouded. "But what must I do if she won't consent? She is a very anxious female, you see, and almost never lets Lucy go anywhere without her, because she lives in dread of some accident befalling her, like being kidnapped, which did happen to some girl or other only last year, but not, of course, in Cheltenham, of all unlikely places!"
    "Yes, and ever since Uncle Abel died she bolts all the doors and windows every evening," corroborated Lucilla, "and makes our butler take the silver up to bed with him, and hides her jewellery under her mattress!"
    "Poor thing!" said Miss Wychwood charitably. "If she is so nervous a good watch-dog is the thing for her!"
    "She is afraid of dogs," said Lucilla gloomily. "And of horses! When I was young I had a pony, and was used to ride every day of my life—oh, Ninian, do you remember what splendid times we had, looking for adventures, and following the Hunt, which we were not permitted to do, but the Master was a particular friend of ours, and never did more than tell us we were a couple of rapscallions, and would end up in Newgate!"
    "Yes, by Jupiter!" said Ninian, kindling. "He was a great gun! Lord, do you remember the time that pony of yours refused, and you went right over the hedge into a ploughed field? I thought we should never get the mud off your habit!"
    Lucilla laughed heartily at this recollection, but her laughter soon died, and she sighed, saying in a melancholy voice that those days were long past. "I know Mama would have bought a hunter for me, when I grew to be too big for dear old Punch, but Aunt Clara utterly refused to do so! She said she wouldn't enjoy a moment's peace of mind if she knew me to be careering all over the countryside, and if I was set on riding there was a very good livery-stable in Cheltenham, which provides reliable grooms to accompany young ladies when they wish to go for rides—on quiet old hacks! Exactly so!" she added, as Ninian uttered a derisive laugh. "And when I appealed to my—my insufferable Uncle Carleton, all he did was to reply in the vilest of scrawls that my Aunt Clara was the best judge of what it was proper for me to do."
    "I must say, one would take him for a regular slow-top," agreed Ninian. "He isn't, though. It might be that he doesn't approve of females hunting."
    "A great many gentlemen don't," said Miss Farlow. "My own dear father would never have permitted me to hunt. Not that I wished to, even if I had been taught to ride, which I wasn't."
    There did not seem to be anything to say in answer to this, and a depressed silence fell on the company. Lucilla broke it. "Depend upon it," she said, "my