“Oh, by Jove!  I hope you don’t stint in the matter of food,” exclaimed the brother.  “You’ll have to drop it while I’m here, I can tell you.  I thought the mater would be up to some little game of this kind when she buried you alive in such an out-of-the-way corner.  She makes a great mistake though, and so I shall tell her.  Young girls of your age ought to be fed up.  You’ll develop properly then, you won’t otherwise.  That’s the new dodge.  All the doctors go upon it.  Feed up the young to any extent, and they’ll pay for it by-and-bye.  Plenty of good English beef and mutton.  What’s the matter, Kate?  What are you laughing in that immoderate manner for?”

“Oh, nothing, Loftie.  I may laugh, I suppose, without saying why.  I wish you would not put on that killing air, though.  And you know perfectly there is no use in laying down the law in mother’s house.”

The three young people were now standing in the hall, and Clara tripped timidly forward.

“We want dinner as quickly as possible, Clara,” said Mabel.  “Come, Loftus, let us take you to your room.”

That night the choicely served repast was less meagre than usual.  Caller herring graced the board in abundance, and even Loftus did not despise these, when really fresh and cooked to perfection.  The hash of New Zealand mutton, however, which followed, was not so much to this fastidious young officer’s taste, but quantities of fine strawberries, supplemented by a jug of rich cream, put him once more into a good humor.  He did not know that Kate had spent one of her very scarce sixpences on the cream, and that the girls had walked a mile-and-a-half through the hot sun that morning to fetch it.

The decanters of wine did not only do duty as ornaments that evening, and as the black coffee which followed was quite to Loftus’ taste, he forgot the New Zealand mutton, or, at least, determined not to speak on the subject before the next morning.

After Mabel went to bed that night Kate asked her brother what the fresh scrape was about.  He was really in an excellent humor then; the seclusion and almost romance of the old place soothed his nerves, which were somewhat jaded with the rush and tear of a life not lived too worthily.  He and Kitty were strolling up and down in the moonlight, and when she asked her question and looked up at him with her fine, intelligent, sympathetic face, he pulled her little ear affectionately, and pushed back the tendrils of soft, dark hair from her brow.

“The usual thing, Kitty,” he responded.  “I’m in the usual sort of scrape.”

“Money?” asked Catherine.

“Confound the thing, yes.  Why was money invented?  It’s the plague of one’s life, Catherine.  If there was no money there’d be no crime.”

“Nonsense,” answered Catherine, with shrewdness.  “If there wasn’t money there would be its equivalent in some form or other.  Are you in debt again, Loftie?”

“How can I help it?  I can’t live on my pittance.”