collected himself. "I beg your pardon."

"That's all right," she said, turning the ponies from the embankment
and whipping them to a gallop.




CHAPTER VII.



There was a moon the next night also. It did not appreciably affect him
this time--down in dirty Sandridge, hobnobbing with the baby's
caretaker and the general merchant, who, shutting his shop at six, was
free to make the sailor's acquaintance, and help him to spend a
pleasant evening. But it turned Redford garden, with its fine old trees
and lawns, into the usual bit of fairyland for those who strayed
therein.

Redford was packed with Christmas guests. The waggonette that had taken
Guthrie Carey to the train had returned full of them, and batches had
been arriving at intervals through the day. At bed-time the sisters
were sharing rooms; Rose had come to Deb's, Frances to Mary's; and the
unmarried men were all at the bachelors' quarters.

It was a hot night, and Deb, under the circumstances, was disinclined
for sleep. She paid visits to one guest chamber and another, for
private gossips and good-nights; when she returned to her own, where
placid Rose had long composed herself, she roamed the floor like a