“In the district! Easterby must be sixty miles from Leicester, and very likely more!”

“Well, now that I’m in the north,” amended the Captain.

“But you will not let Mama return to Mildenhurst without an escort!”

“No, of course I won’t. My man shall go with her. You won’t object to having Cocking to ride beside the chaise in my stead, will you, Mama? You’ll be quite safe with him.”

“By all means, my dear. But had you not better take him with you?”

“Lord, no! I’ll take what I want in a saddle-bag, and shan’t have the least need of him,”

“When,” demanded Fanny, a look of foreboding in her eyes, “do you mean to return to Mildenhurst?”

“Oh, I don’t know!” said her maddening brother. “In a week or so, I daresay. Why?”

Fanny, prohibited by a quelling glance from her mama from answering this question, merely looked her disapprobation. Mrs. Staple said: “It is not of the smallest consequence. I have friends coming to stay at Mildenhurst next week, so you are not to be thinking that I may be lonely, John.”

“Oh, that’s famous, then!” he said, relieved. “You know. Mama, I don’t know how it is—whether it’s my uncle, with his bamboozling ways, or Aunt Caroline, or Lucius’s laugh, or Ralph Tackenham prosing on for ever, or young Geoffrey aping the dandy-set, or just the devilish propriety of Easterby—but I can’t stand it here!”

“I know just what you mean,” his mother assured him.

He bent, giving her a hug and a kiss. “You are the best mother in the world!” he said. “What’s more, that’s a very fetching nightcap, ma’am! I must go: Melksham wants to start a faro-bank now, and Bevis don’t like it above half. Poor old fellow! he’ll never be able to handle Melksham—not when Melksham’s muddled, which he is, six days out of the seven. Christened with pump-water, that lad! He’ll be as drunk as an artillery-man before morning.”