had grown rather wary of exhibiting affection towards her pupils, who were apt to respond so voluminously as to leave her crumpled, if not actually dishevelled.

"Well, if you love me as much as you say you do," she said, "you will remember all the things I have told you; now are you quite ready for breakfast, because it is time to go down?"

"We told Dick you would like him to kiss you before you went, and I think he will," said Joan innocently, as they went down the broad staircase all three abreast.

"Now, Joan, if you really said a thing like that—oh, take care! take care!" Miss Bird had tried to stop on the stairs and withdraw her arm from Joan's, who, assisted by Nancy on the other side, had led her on so that she tripped over the next step, and would have fallen but for the firm grasp of the twins. She was led into the dining-room, protesting volubly, until she saw that Mrs. Clinton and Dick were there, when the episode ended.

When breakfast was over the Squire surprised her by asking her immediate attendance in his room, to which she followed him across the hall in a flutter of apprehension. It would not be quite true to say that she had never been into this room during the thirty years of her sojourn at Kencote, but it was certainly the first time she had entered it on the Squire's invitation. He did not ask her to take a seat, nor did he take one himself, but stood in front of the fire with his coat tails over his arm and his hands in his pockets.

"There's a little matter of business I should like to settle with you, Miss Bird," he said. "You've lived here a considerable number of years, and you've done remarkably well by us and the children. If everybody did their duty in life as well as you, Miss Bird, the world 'ud be a better place than it is, by George! Now I want to do a little something for you, as you've done so much for us, and I've talked it over with Dick, and we are going to buy you a little annuity of fifty pounds a year, which with what my wife tells me you've saved will put you out of anxiety for the future; and I'll tell you this, Miss Bird, that I never—Eh, what! Oh, my good woman ... God's sake ... here, don't take on like that ... Gobblessme, what's to be done?"

For Miss Bird, overcome by this last great mark of esteem, had broken down and was now sobbing into her handkerchief. Knowing, however, the Squire's dislike of a scene she succeeded in controlling herself, and addressed him with no more than an occasional hiccup. "I beg your pardon, Mr. Clinton; I couldn't help it and it's too much and I thank you from the bottom of my heart and shall never forget it as long as I live and it's just like all the rest of the kindness I've received in this house which I could never repay if I lived to be a hundred."

"Well, I'm very glad it meets your views, Miss Bird," said the Squire, greatly relieved at the subsidence of emotion, and anxious to escape further thanks. "And I assure you the obligation's still on our side. Now, I must write some letters, and I dare say you've got something to do, too."

Miss Bird retired to her bedroom where, unrebuked, she shed her tears of thankfulness, then wiped her eyes and sponged her face and went about the duties of the day.

These did not, this morning, include lessons for the twins, for it was Saturday, which was for them a holiday, when complete freedom was tempered only by the necessity of "practising." Dick had refused to drive them over to Mountfield to see their sister and her babies, but had offered them a walk to the dower-house during the course of the morning.

"I wonder what he wants to go there for?" said Joan, as they went upstairs.

"There's more in this," said Nancy, "than meets the eye."

There did not, however, seem to be more in it than a natural desire to see a house empty which one has always known occupied, and this desire the twins shared. They found Dick in an affable mood as they walked across the park together—the sort of affectionately jovial mood of which they had occasionally taken advantage to secure a temporary addition to their income. Indeed, it seemed to have brought Dick himself a reminder of his young sisters' financial requirements, for he asked them, "Have you saved up enough money for your camera yet, Twankies?"

Neither of them replied for the moment, then Joan said rather stiffly, "We shan't be able to buy that for some time."

"Why, you only wanted twenty-five shillings to make it up a month ago, and I gave you a sovereign towards it," said Dick.

Another short pause, and then Nancy said, "You gave it us!"

"Yes," said Dick, "to buy a camera. I'm not certain you didn't screw it out of me. I never quite know whether it's my idea or yours when I tip you Twankies. Come now, what have you done with that sovereign?"

"We have spent it on a good object," said Joan. "But we do want the camera most frightfully badly, and if you would like to contribute to the fund again it would save us many weary months of waiting."

"To say nothing of a severe economy painful to our generous natures," added Nancy.

"Not till I know what you spent the last contribution on," said Dick. "You're getting regular young spendthrifts. I shall have to look into this, or you'll be ruining me by and by."

"Won't you give us anything more unless we tell you?" enquired Joan; and Nancy amended the question: "Will you give us something more if we do tell you?"

"I'll see," said Dick. "Come, out with it!"

"Well, it's nothing to be ashamed of," said Joan. "We wanted to buy the old Starling a really good present, and out of our own money."

"It took the form of a pair of silver-backed brushes with cupids' heads on them, and cost three pounds seventeen and sixpence," added Nancy.

"They are not cupids, but angels," said Joan, "which are much more adapted to Starling's tastes."

"Well—cupids or angels—it cleaned us entirely out," concluded Nancy.

Dick put an arm round the shoulders of each and gave them a squeeze as they walked. "You're a pair of topping good Twankies," he said. "I'll start your new camera fund. I'll give it you now."

"Thanks awfully, Dick," said Joan, as he took out his sovereign purse, "but I think we'd rather you didn't. You see, it's rather a special occasion—the poor old Starling going away—and we wanted to give her something that would really cost us something."

"I agree with my sister," said Nancy. "But thanks awfully all the same, Dick. You're always a brick."

"Well, I respect the delicacy of your feelings, Twanks," said Dick. "But isn't anybody ever going to be allowed to contribute to the camera fund? How long does the embargo last?"

"There's a good deal in that," said Joan thoughtfully. "Of course we can't refuse tips for ever, can we, Nancy?"

Nancy thought not. "Let's say in a month from to-day," she suggested. "If Dick likes to give us something then and happens to remember it—of course, we shan't remind him—then I think we might accept without feeling pigs."

"I'll make a note of that," said Dick gravely, "when I get home."

CHAPTER IV

THE DOWER-HOUSE

Surrounded by its winter woods and an over-thick growth of evergreens, the little Jacobean hall, which had for centuries been the second home of the Clintons of Kencote, had an air slightly depressing as Dick and the twins came to it through the yew-enclosed garden at the back. White blinds were down behind all the leaded mullioned windows, only one thin thread of smoke rose into the sky from the carved and twisted chimney-stacks.

Forty years before, when the Squire had succeeded his grandfather, his six spinster aunts had left him in undisturbed possession of the great house and taken up their abode here, very seldom to leave, until one by one they had been carried off to their grave in Kencote churchyard. Aunt Ellen, the eldest of them all, had died at a