awe them, and one Sunday when Lady Adeline--their mother--could not
accompany him, Mr. Hamilton-Wells ventured to go alone with them. He took
the precaution to place them on either side of him so as to separate them
and interpose a solid body between them and any signals they might make to
each other; but in the quietest part of the service, when everybody was
kneeling, some movement of Diavolo's attracted his attention for a moment
from Angelica, and when he looked again the latter had disappeared. She
had discovered that it was possible to creep from pew to pew beneath the
seats, and had started to explore the church. On her way, however, she
observed a pair of stout legs belonging to a respectable elderly woman who
was too deep in her devotion to be aware of the intruder, and, being
somewhat astonished by their size, she proceeded to test their quality
with a pin, the consequence being an appalling shriek from the woman,
which started a shrill treble cry from herself. The service was suspended,
and Mr. Hamilton-Wells, the most precise of men, hastened down the aisle,
and fished his daughter out, an awful spectacle of dust, from under the
seat, incontinently.

When Mr. and Lady Adeline Hamilton-Wells went from home for any length of
time they were obliged to take their children with them, as servants who
knew the latter would rather leave than be left in charge of them, and
this was how it happened that Evadne made their acquaintance at an early
age.

It was during their first visit to Fraylingay, while they were still quite
tiny, and she was hardly in her teens, that the event referred to in
illustration of one of Evadne's characteristics occurred.

The twins had arrived late in the afternoon, and were taken into the
dining room, where the table was already decorated for dinner. It