would!"

"Then you lack imagination and a man without imagination is akin to the brutes and—" but here she broke off to utter a small scream and glancing up in alarm he saw her eyes were closed and that she shuddered violently.

"Madam!" he cried, "mam! My lady—good heaven are you sick—faint?"

Regardless of the cherry-tree he reached up long arms and swinging himself up astride the wall, had an arm about her shivering form all in a moment; thus as she leaned against him he caught the perfume of all her warm, soft daintiness, then she drew away.

"What was it?" he questioned anxiously as she opened her eyes, "were you faint, mam? Was it a fit? Good lack, mam, I——"

"Do—not—call me—that!" she cried, eyes flashing and—yes, they were blue—very darkly blue—"Never dare to call me—so—again!"

"Call you what, mam?"

"Mam!" she cried, gnashing her white teeth—"'tis a hateful word!"

"Indeed I—I had not thought it so," stammered the Major. "It is, I believe, a word in common use and——"

"Aye, 'tis common! 'Tis odious! 'Tis vulgar!"

"I crave your ladyship's pardon!" And he bowed as well as his position would allow, though a little stiffly.

"You are marvellous nimble, sir!"

"Your ladyship is gracious!"

"Considering your age, sir!"

"And you, madam, I lament that at yours you should be subject to fits."

"Fits!" she cried in frowning amaze.

"Seizures, then——"

"'Twas no seizure, sir—'twas yourself!"

"Me?" he exclaimed, staring.

"You—and your abominable tobacco-pipe!" Here she shivered daintily.

"Alack, madam, see, 'tis broke!"

"Heaven be thanked, sir."

"'Twas an admirable pipe—an old friend," he murmured.

"O fie, sir—only chairmen and watchmen and worse, drink smoke. 'Tis a low habit, vicious, vain and vulgar."

"Is it so indeed, madam?"

"It is! Aunt Belinda says so and I think so. If you must have vices why not snuff?"

"But I hate snuff!"

"But 'tis so elegant! There's Sir Jasper Denholm takes it with such an air I vow 'tis perfectly ravishing! And Sir Benjamin Tripp and Viscount Merivale in especial—such grace! Such an elegant turn of the wrist! But to suck a pipe—O Gemini!"

"I'm sorry my pipe offends you!" said he, glancing at her glowing loveliness.

And here, because of her beauty and nearness he grew silent and finding he yet held part of his clay pipe, broken in his hasty ascent, he fell to turning it over in his fingers, staring at it very hard but seeing it not at all; whereat she fell to studying him, his broad shoulders and powerful hands, his clean-cut aquiline features, his tender mouth and strong, square chin. Thus, the Major, glancing up suddenly, eye met eye and for a long moment they looked on one another, then, as she turned away he saw her cheek crimson suddenly and she, aware of this, clenched her white fists and flushed all the deeper.

"'Tis abominable rude to—stare so!" she said, over her shoulder.

"You are the Lady Elizabeth Carlyon, I think?" he enquired.

"And then, sir?"

"Then you are well used to being stared at, methinks."

"At a distance, sir!"

Here the Major edged away a couple of inches.

"You have heard of such a person before, then?" she enquired loftily.

"I go to London—sometimes, madam, when I must and when last there I chanced to hear her acclaimed and toasted as the 'Admirable Betty'!" said he, frowning.

"I am sometimes called Betty, sir," she acknowledged.

"Also 'Bewitching Bet'!" Here he scowled fiercely at a bunch of cherries.

"Do you think Bet so ill a name, sir?" she enquired, stealing a glance at him.

"'Bewitching Bet'!" he repeated grimly and the hand that grasped his broken pipe became a fist, observing which she smiled slyly.

"Or is it that the 'bewitching' offends you, sir?" she questioned innocently.

"Both, mam, both!" said he, scowling yet.

"La, sir," she cried gaily, "in this light and at this precise angle I do protest you look quite handsome when you frown."

The Major immediately laughed.

"If," she continued, "your chin were less grim and craggy and your nose a little different and your eyes less like gimlets and needles—if you wore a modish French wig instead of a horsehair mat and had your garments made by a London tailor instead of a country cobbler and carpenter you would be almost attractive—by candle light."

"Is my wig so unmodish?" he enquired smiling a trifle ruefully, "'tis my best."

"Unmodish?" White hands were lifted, and sparkling eyes rolled themselves in agonised protest. "There's a new tie-wig come in—un peu negligée—a most truly ravishing confection. As for clothes——"

"And needles," he added, "pray what of your promise?"

"Promise, sir?"

"You were to teach me how to sew on a button, I think?"

"Button!" she repeated, staring,

"If you've forgot, 'tis no matter, madam," said he and dropped very nimbly from the wall.

"Ah, my forgetfulness hath angered you, sir."

"No, child, no, extreme youth is apt to be extreme thoughtless and forgetful——"

"Sir, I am twenty-two."

"And I am forty-one!" he said wistfully.

"'Tis a monstrous great age, sir!"

"I begin to fear it is!" said he rather ruefully.

"And great age is apt to be peevish and slothful and childish and fretful and must be ruled. So come you over the wall this instant, sir!"

"And wherefore, madam?"

"'Tis so my will!"

"But——"

"Plague take it, sir, how may I sew on your abominable buttons with a wall betwixt us? Over with you this moment—obey!"

The Major obeyed forthwith.

CHAPTER IV

CONCERNING THE BUTTONS OF THE RAMILLIE COAT

"Now pray remark, sir," said the Lady Elizabeth Carlyon, seating herself in a shady arbour and taking up her needle and thread, "a woman, instead of sucking her thread and rubbing it into a black spike and cursing, threads her needle—so! Thereafter she takes the object to be sewed and holds it—no, she can't, sir, while you sit so much afar, prithee come closer to her—there! Yet no—'twill never do—she'll be apt to prick you sitting thus——"

"If I took off my coat, madam——"

"'Twould be monstrous indecorous, sir! No, you must kneel down—here at my feet!"

"But—madam——"

"To your knees, sir, or I'll prick you vilely! She now takes the article to be sewed and—pray why keep at such a distance? She cannot sew gracefully while you pull one way and she another! She then fits on her thimble, poises needle and—sews!" The which my lady forthwith proceeded to do making wondrous pretty play with white hand and delicate wrist the while.

And when she had sewn in silence for perhaps one half-minute she fell to converse thus:

"Indeed you look vastly appealing on your knees, sir. Pray have you knelt to many lovely ladies?"

"Never in my life!" he answered fervently.

"And yet you kneel with infinite grace—'tis quite affecting, how doth it feel to crouch thus humbly before the sex?"

"Uncommon hard to the knees, madam."

"Indeed I fear you have no soul, sir."

"Ha!" exclaimed the Major, rising hastily, "someone comes, I think!"

Sure enough, in due time, a somewhat languid but herculean footman appeared, who perceiving the Major, faltered, stared, pulled himself together and, approaching at speed, bowed in swift and supple humility and spoke:

"Four gentlemen to see your ladyship!"

"Only four? Their names?"

The large menial expanded large chest and spake with unction:

"The Marquis of Alton, Sir Jasper Denholm, Sir Benjamin Tripp and Mr. Marchdale."

"Well say I'm out—say I'm engaged—say I wish to be private!"

The large footman blinked, and the Major