"My niece, Miss Heathcote, is quite well, thanks, and has gone to church
elsewhere," said Miss Noel, with dignity, intending to mildly repress a
young gentleman whom she thought a little too free with his "Miss Ethels."

"Then I will have the pleasure of calling upon you to-morrow," said
Captain Kendall, unabashed and joyous, as he walked away.

So active an intelligence as Sir Robert's requires plenty of food, and
when Mrs. Ketchum senior issued from her room about ten the next morning,
whom should she meet in the hall but the baronet in a state of the most
overflowing energy and brilliant good humor, dressed in a suit of striped
red-and-white "pajamas," having on his head a paper cap, under his arm a
roll of designs, and in his mind the delightful intention of painting the
ceiling of Mabel's boudoir!

"Good-morning, madam. Here we are," he said, shaking his box of paints and
stencils at her. "I have improvised a scaffolding, and am now going to
work on my outlines. I planned the whole thing in bed last night, and,
unless I am much mistaken, we are going to have the prettiest boudoir in
this part of the country. I shall do a panel or two to get the effect, and
any workman can finish it."

"But can you do it?" asked Mrs. Ketchum, amazed, but interested.

"You shall see. I frescoed the chapel on my place at home, and I may say
there have been worse pieces of work," replied Sir Robert, descending the
stairs as he spoke, eager to get to work.

"Is he _raving crazy_, Mabel? What on earth has he got on? He isn't
_respectable_. I declare to goodness, he has set my heart beating so I