“He is gone, and it’s all safe.”

“And what did he want?  What was it he had heard about me?”

Mr. Carlyle gave a brief explanation, and Richard immediately set down the letter as the work of Thorn.

“Will it be possible for me to see my mother this time?” he demanded of Mr. Carlyle.

“I think it would be highly injudicious to let your mother know you are here, or have been here,” was the answer of Mr. Carlyle.  “She would naturally be inquiring into particulars, and when she came to hear that you were pursued, she would never have another minute’s peace.  You must forego the pleasure of seeing her this time, Richard.”

“And Barbara?”

“Barbara might come and stay the day with you.  Only——­”

“Only what, sir?” cried Richard, for Mr. Carlyle had hesitated.

“I was thinking what a wretched morning it is for her to come out in.”

“She would go through an avalanche—­she’d wade through mountains of snow, to see me,” cried Richard eagerly, “and be delighted to do it.”

“She always was a little fool,” put in Miss Carlyle, jerking some stitches out of her knitting.

“I know she would,” observed Mr. Carlyle, in answer to Richard.  “We will try and get her here.”

“She can arrange about the money I am to have, just as well as my mother could you know, sir.”

“Yes; for Barbara is in receipt of money of her own now, and I know she would not wish better than to apply some of it to you.  Cornelia, as an excuse for getting her here, I must say to Mrs. Hare that you are ill, and wish Barbara to come for the day and bear your company.  Shall I?”

“Say I am dead, if you like,” responded Miss Corny, who was in one of her cross moods.

Mr. Carlyle ordered the pony carriage, and drove forth with John.  He drew in at the grove.  Barbara and Mrs. Hare were seated together, and looked surprised at the early visit.

“Do you want Mr. Hare, Archibald?  He is out.  He went while the breakfast was on the table, apparently in a desperate hurry.”

“I don’t want Mr. Hare; I want Barbara.  I have come to carry her off.”

“To carry off Barbara!” echoed Mrs. Hare.

“Cornelia is not well; she had caught a violent cold, and wishes Barbara to spend the day with her.”

“Oh, Mr. Carlyle, I cannot leave mamma to-day.  She is not well herself, and she would be dull without me.”

“Neither can I spare her, Archibald.  It is not a day for Barbara to go out.”

How could he get to say a word to Barbara alone?  Whilst he deliberated, talking on, though, all the while to Mrs. Hare, a servant appeared at the sitting-room door.

“The fishmonger’s boy is come up, ma’am.  His master has sent him to say that he fears there’ll be no fish in to-day, in anything like time.  The trains won’t get up, with this weather.”

Mrs. Hare rose from her seat to hold a confab at the door with the maid; and Mr. Carlyle seized his opportunity.