"Dear me!" cried Hildegarde. "I should beg for gooseberry once a
week, dear boy, if it were going on quite so long as that. Well,
my mother, you look like the Queen of Conspirators. What have you
and Hugh been talking about, that you both look so guilty?"

"Guilty, my dear Hildegarde?" said Mrs. Grahame, drawing herself
up. "The word is a singular one for a daughter to use to her
mother."

"Yes," said Hildegarde, "it is! and the thing is a singular one
for a mother to be toward her daughter. If ever I saw PLOT written
all over an expressive countenance,--but no more of this! Dear
Colonel Ferrers, how wonderful the roses are!"

Surely there never were so many roses as at Roseholme. The house
had been ransacked for jars, vases and bowls to hold them, and
every available surface was a mass of glowing blossoms. The girls
hovered from vase to vase, exclaiming with delight at each new
combination of beauties.

Now tea was announced, and this time Colonel Ferrers offered his
arm to Mrs. Merryweather, as the stranger and new-comer in the
neighbourhood; but the good lady protested against anyone but the
"birthday child" being taken in by the host, and the Colonel
yielded, it must be said with a very good grace.

Here, in the long, oak-panelled dining-room were more roses,--
ropes and garlands of them, hanging in festoons along the dark,
shining panels, drooping from the Venetian lustres of the quaint
chandelier. Even the moose's head on the wall behind the Colonel's