and I have never been to one; yet there is this to be considered, would it be right for me to go without a friend to such a place?  Another point is, that we shall live in menagerie style at Knollsea for the sake of the children, and we must do it economically in case we accept Aunt Charlotte’s invitation to Rouen; hence, if he or his friends find us out there it will be awkward for me.  So the alternative is Knollsea or some other place for us.’

‘Let it be Knollsea, now we have once settled it,’ said Picotee anxiously.  ‘I have mentioned to Faith Julian that we shall be there.’

‘Mentioned it already!  You must have written instantly.’

‘I had a few minutes to spare, and I thought I might as well write.’

‘Very well; we will stick to Knollsea,’ said Ethelberta, half in doubt.  ’Yes—­otherwise it will be difficult to see about aunt’s baptismal certificate.  We will hope nobody will take the trouble to pry into our household. . . .  And now, Picotee, I want to ask you something—­something very serious.  How would you like me to marry Mr. Neigh?’

Ethelberta could not help laughing with a faint shyness as she asked the question under the searching east ray.  ‘He has asked me to marry him,’ she continued, ’and I want to know what you would say to such an arrangement.  I don’t mean to imply that the event is certain to take place; but, as a mere supposition, what do you say to it, Picotee?’ Ethelberta was far from putting this matter before Picotee for advice or opinion; but, like all people who have an innate dislike to hole-and-corner policy, she felt compelled to speak of it to some one.

‘I should not like him for you at all,’ said Picotee vehemently.  ’I would rather you had Mr. Ladywell.’

‘O, don’t name him!’

’I wouldn’t have Mr. Neigh at any price, nevertheless.  It is about him that I was going to tell you.’  Picotee proceeded to relate Menlove’s account of the story of Ethelberta’s escapade, which had been dragged from Neigh the previous evening by the friend to whom he had related it before he was so enamoured of Ethelberta as to regard that performance as a positive virtue in her.  ’Nobody was told, or even suspected, who the lady of the anecdote was,’ Picotee concluded; ’but I knew instantly, of course, and I think it very unfortunate that we ever went to that dreadful ghostly estate of his, Berta.’

Ethelberta’s face heated with mortification.  She had no fear that Neigh had told names or other particulars which might lead to her identification by any friend of his, and she could make allowance for bursts of confidence; but there remained the awkward fact that he himself knew her to be the heroine of the episode.  What annoyed her most was that Neigh could ever have looked upon her indiscretion as a humorous incident, which he certainly must have done at some time or other to account for his telling it.  Had he been angry with her, or sneered at