Night had fallen, and Mr. Teesdale had the homestead all to himself. Arabella and her mother had accompanied the ministers to evening worship in the township chapel. John William was busy with the milking. As for Missy, she had disappeared, as well she might, after her outrageous performance in the best parlour. And Mr. Teesdale was beginning to wonder whether they were ever to see her again; and if never, then what sort of report could he send his old friend now?

He did not know. Her last prank was also incomparably her worst, it had stunned poor David, and it left him unable to think coherently of Missy any longer. Yet her own father had warned him that Miriam was a very modern type of young woman; had hinted at the possibility of her startling simple folks. Then again, David, who took his newspaper very seriously indeed, had his own opinion of modern society in England and elsewhere. And if, as he believed, Missy was a specimen of that society, then it was not right to be hard upon the specimen. Had not he gathered long ago from the newspapers that the music-hall song and dance had found their way into smart London drawing-rooms? Now that he had heard that song, and seen that dance, were they much worse than he had been led to suppose? If so, then society was even blacker than it was painted, that was all. The individual in any case was not to blame, but least of all in this case, where the individual had shown nothing but kindness to an uninteresting old man, quite aside and apart from her position in the old man's house as the child of his earliest friend.

And yet—and yet—he would do something to blot this last lurid scene out of his mind. There was nothing he would not do, if only he could do that. Yet this only showed him the narrowness of his own mind. That, after all, was half the trouble. Here at the antipodes, in an overlooked corner that had missed development with the colony, just as Mr. Teesdale himself had missed it: here all minds must be narrow. But theirs at the farm were perhaps narrower than most; otherwise they would never have been so shocked at Missy; at all events they would not have shown their feelings, as they evidently must have shown them, to have driven poor Missy off the premises, as they had apparently done.

Mr. Teesdale became greatly depressed as he made these reflections, and gradually got as much of the blame on to his own shoulders as one man could carry. It was very dark. He was sitting out on the verandah and smoking; but it was too dark to enjoy a pipe properly, even if David could have enjoyed anything just then. He was sitting in one of those wooden chairs in which he had so often sat of late while Missy read to him, and one hand rested mournfully upon the seat of the empty chair at his side. Not that he as yet really dreaded never seeing Missy again. He was keeping a look-out for her all the time. Sooner or later she was bound to come back.

She had come back already, but it was so dark that David never saw her until he was putting a light to his second pipe. Then the face of Missy, with her red hair tousled, came out of the night beyond the verandah with startling vividness, and it was the most defiant face that ever David Tees-dale had beheld.

"Missy," cried he, "is that you?"

He dropped the match and Missy's face was gone.

"Yes, it's me," said her voice, in such a tone as might have been expected from her face.

"Then come in, child, come in," said David joyfully, pushing back his chair as he rose. "I'm that glad you've come back, you can't think!"

"But I haven't come back—that's just it," answered the defiant voice out of the night.

"Then I'm going to fetch you back, Missy. I'm going——"

"You stop in that verandah. If you come out I'll take to my heels and you'll never see me again—never! Now look here, Mr. Teesdale, haven't I sickened you this time?"

"Done what, Missy?" asked David, uneasily, from the verandah. He could see her outline now.

"Sickened you. I should have thought I'd sickened you just about enough this trip, if you'd asked me. I should have said I'd choked you off for good and all."

"You know you've done no such thing, Missy. What nonsense the child will talk!"

"What! I didn't sicken you this afternoon?"

"No."

"Didn't disgust you, if you like that better?"

"No."

"Didn't make you perspire, the whole lot of you?"

"Of course you didn't, Missy. How you talk! You amused us a good deal, and you surprised us, too, a bit; but that was all."

"Oh! So that was all, was it? So I only surprised you a bit? I suppose you don't happen to know whether it was a big bit, eh?"

But David now decided that the time was come for firmness.

"Listen to me, Missy; I'm not going to have any more to say to you unless you come inside at once!"

"But what if I'm not never coming inside—never no more?"

There was that within the words which made David pause to consider. At length he said: "Very well, then, come into the verandah and we'll have a sensible talk here, and I won't force you into the house; though where else you're to go I don't quite see. However, come here, and I won't insist on your coming a step further."

"Honour bright?"

"Of course."

"Hope to die?"

"I don't understand you, Missy; but I meant what I said."

"Then I'm coming. One moment, though! Is anybody about? Is Mrs. Teesdale in the house?"

"No, she's gone to chapel. So has Arabella, and John William's milking. They'll none of 'em be back just yet. Ah, that's better, my dear girl, that's better!"

Missy was back in her old wooden chair. Mr. Teesdale sat down again in its fellow and put his hand affectionately upon the girl's shoulder.

"So you mean to tell me your hairs didn't stand on end!" said Missy, in a little whisper that was as unnecessary as it was fascinating just then.

"I haven't got much to boast of," answered the old man cheerily; "but what hair I have didn't do any such thing, Missy."

"Now just you think what you're saying," pursued the girl, with an air as of counsel cautioning a witness. "You tell me I neither sickened you, nor disgusted you, nor choked you off for good and all with that song and dance I gave you this afternoon. Your hairs didn't stand on end, and I didn't even make you perspire—so you say! But do you really mean me to believe you?"

"Why, bless the child! To be sure—to be sure!"

"Then, Mr. Teesdale, I must ask you whether you're in the habit of telling lies."

David opened his mouth to answer very promptly indeed, but kept it open without answering at all at the moment. He had remembered something that sent his left thumb and forefinger of their own accord into an empty waistcoat pocket. "No," said he presently with a sigh, "I'm not exactly in the habit of saying what isn't true."

"But you do it sometimes?"

"I have done it, God forgive me! But who has not?"

"Not me," cried Missy candidly. "There's not a bigger liar in this world than me! I'm going to tell you about that directly. I'm so glad you've told a lie or two yourself—it gives me such a leg-up—though I never should have thought it of you, Mr. Teesdale. I've told hundreds since I've known you. Have you told any since you've known me?"

The question was asked with all the inquisitive sympathy of one discovering a comrade in sin. "I mean not counting the ones you've just been telling me," added Missy when she got no answer, "about your not being shocked, and all the rest of it."

"That was no falsehood, Missy; that was the truth."

"All right, then, we'll pass that. Have you told any other lies since I've been here? Just whisper, and I promise I won't let on. I do so want to know."

"But why, my dear—but why?"

"Because it'll be ever so much easier for me to make my confession when you've made yours."

"Your confession! What can you have to confess, Missy?" The old man chuckled as he patted her hand.

"More than you're prepared for. But you must fire first. Have you or have you not told a wicked story since I've been staying here?"

Mr. Teesdale cleared his throat and sat upright in his chair.

"Missy," said he solemnly, "the only untruth I can remember telling in all my life, I have told since you have been with us; and I've told ............