not have dared to keep them out. I mind now their coming like this
twenty years agone. It was--"

"I will see to them," said Sophie, who had become in her young,
brave strength quite the mistress of the ceremonies. "Leave the
rest to me."

"And if you can persuade them to go away--" began Mrs. Tarne; but
her daughter had already disappeared, and was parleying through
the keyhole with the strangers without.

"Such hospitality as we can offer, gentlemen, shall be at your
service, providing always that you treat us with the respect due
to gentlewomen and your hosts."

"Trust to that," was the reply. "I will answer for myself and my
companions, Mistress Pemberthy."

"You give me your word of honour?"

"My word of honour," he repeated; "our words of honour, and speaking
for all my good friends present; is it not so, men?"

"Ay, ay--that 's right," chorused the good friends; and then Sophie
Tarne, not without an extra plunging of the heart beneath her white
crossover, unlocked the stout oaken door and let in her unwelcome
visitors.

Seven out of the eight seemed to tumble in all at once, pushing
against one another in their eagerness to enter, laughing, shouting,