“She’s just a cat, is that Susan Peckaby!” decided he, with acrimony, in the intervals of his whistling.  “It was her as put mother up to the thought o’ sending me to-night:  Rachel Frost said the things ’ud do in the morning.  ’Let Dan carry ’em up now,’ says Dame Peckaby, ’and ask her about the print, and then I’ll take it home along o’ me.’  And if I go in without the answer, she’ll be the first to help mother to baste me!  Hi! ho! hur! hur-r-r-r!”

This last exclamation was caused by his catching sight of some small animal scudding along.  He was at that moment traversing a narrow, winding lane; and, in the field to the right, as he looked in at the open gate, he saw the movement.  It might be a cat, it might be a hare, it might be a rabbit, it might be some other animal; it was all one to Mr. Dan Duff; and he had not been a boy had he resisted the propensity to pursue it.  Catching up a handful of earth from the lane, he shied it in the proper direction, and tore in at the gate after it.

Nothing came of the pursuit.  The trespasser had earthed itself, and Mr. Dan came slowly back again.  He had nearly approached the gate, when somebody passed it, walking up the lane with a very quick step, from the direction in which he, Dan, was bound.  Dan saw enough to know that it was not Rachel, for it was the figure of a man; but Dan set off to run, and emerged from the gate just in time to catch another glimpse of the person, as he disappeared beyond the windings of the lane.

“’Twarn’t Rachel, at all events,” was his comment.  And he turned and pursued his way again.

It was somewhere about this time that Tynn made his appearance in the dining-room at Verner’s Pride, to put away the dessert, and set the tea.  The stir woke up Mrs. Verner.

“Send Rachel to me,” said she, winking and blinking at the tea-cups.

“Yes, ma’am,” replied Tynn.

He left the room when he had placed the cups and things to his satisfaction.  He called for Rachel high and low, up and down.  All to no purpose.  The servants did not appear to know anything of her.  One of them went to the door and shouted out to the laundry to know whether Rachel was there, and the answering shout “No” came back.  The footman at length remembered that he had seen her go out at the hall door while the dinner was in.  Tynn carried this item of information to Mrs. Verner.  It did not please her.

“Of course!” she grumbled.  “Let me want any one of you particularly, and you are sure to be away!  If she did go out, she ought not to stay as long as this.  Who’s this coming in?”

It was Frederick Massingbird.  He entered, singing a scrap of a song; which was cut suddenly short when his eye fell on the servant.

“Tynn,” said he, “you must bring me something to eat.  I have had no dinner.”

“You cannot be very hungry, or you’d have come in before,” remarked Mrs. Verner to him.  “It is tea-time now.”