Breakfast over at the Elms, and no improvement in the weather. Maximilian Bray said that it was impossible to go out, “bai Jove!” so he was seated in a low bergère chair in the drawing-room. He had taken a book from a side table as if with the intention of reading; but it had fallen upon the floor, Max Bray not being at the best of times a reading man; and now he was busy at work plotting and planning with a devotion worthy of a better cause. His head was imparting some of its ambrosia to the light chintz chair-cover, for he had impatiently thrown the antimacassar under the table. Then he fidgeted about a little, altered the sit of his collar and wristbands, and at last, as if not satisfied with his position, he removed his chair farther into the bay, so that the light drapery of the flowing curtains concealed his noble form from the view of any one entering the room, when, apparently satisfied, he gazed thoughtfully through the panes at the soaked landscape.

Max Bray had not been long settled to his satisfaction when Laura entered, shutting the door with a force that whispered—nay, shouted—of a temper soured by some recent disappointment. She gave a sharp glance round the room, and then, seeing no one, threw herself into a chair, a sob at the same moment bursting from her breast.

“She shall go—that she shall!” exclaimed Laura suddenly, as she gave utterance to her thoughts. “Such deceit!—such quiet carneying ways! But there shall be no more of it: she shall go!”

Laura Bray ceased speaking; and, starting up, she began to pace the room, but only to stop short on seeing her brother gazing at her with a half-mocking, half-amused expression of countenance from behind the curtain.

“You here, Max!” she exclaimed, colouring hotly.

“Bai Jove, ya-a-as!” he drawled. “But, I say, isn’t it a bad plan to go about the house shouting so that every one can hear your bewailings, because a horsey cad of a fellow gives roses to one lady and thorns to another?”

“What do you mean, Max?” said Laura.

“What do I mean! Well, that’s cool, bai Jove! O, of course nothing about meetings by moonlight alone, and roses and vows, and that sort of spooneyism! But didn’t you come tearing and raving in here, saying that she should go, and that you wouldn’t stand it, and swore—”

“O, Max?” cried Laura passionately.

“Bai Jove! why don’t you let a fellow finish?” drawled Max. “Swore, I said—swore like a cat just going to scratch; and I suppose that you would like to scratch, eh?”

“But, Max, did you really hear what I said?” cried Laura.

“Hear? Bai Jove! of course I did—every word. Couldn’t help it. Good job it was only me.”

“How could you be so unmanly as to listen!” cried Laura.

“Listen? Bai Jove, how you do talk! I didn’t listen; you came and raved it all at me. And so she shall go, shall she?”

“Yes!” exclaimed Laura, firing up, and speaking viciously, “that she shall—a deceitful creature! I see through all her plots and plans, and I’ll—”

“Tear her eyes out, won’t you, my dear, eh? Now just look here, Laury: you think me slow, and all that sort of fun, and that I don’t see things; but I’m not blind. So the big boy has kicked off his allegiance, has he? and run mad after the little governess, has he? and the big sister is very angry and jealous!”

“Jealous, indeed!” cried Laura—“and of a creature like that!”

“All right; only don’t interrupt,” said Max mockingly. “Jealous, I said, and won’t put up with it, and quite right too! But, all the same, I’m not going to have her sent away.”

“And why not, pray?” cried Laura with flashing eyes.

“Because I don’t choose that she shall go,” said Max coolly.

Laura started, and then in silence brother and sister sat for a few moments gazing in each other’s eyes, a flood of thought sweeping the while across the brain of the latter as she recalled a score of little things till then unnoticed, or merely attributed to a natural desire to flirt; but, with the key supplied by Max Bray’s last words, Laura felt that she could read him with ease, and her brow contracted as she tried to make him shrink; but that did not lie in her power.

“Max!” she exclaimed at last, “I’m ashamed of you! It’s mean, and contemptible, and base, and grovelling! I’m disgusted! Why, you’ll be turning your eyes next to the servants’ hall!”

“Thank you, my dear!” drawled Max. “Very high-flown and grand! But I shall be content at present with the schoolroom. And now suppose I say I’m ashamed of you; and, bai Jove, I am! A girl of your style and pretensions, instead of winking at what you’ve seen, or coming to your brother for counsel, to go howling about the house—”

“Max!” half shrieked Laura. “I don’t care—bai Jove, I don’t!” he exclaimed. “So you do go howling about the house like a forlorn shepherdess, bai Jove, so that every one can see what a fool you are making of yourself!”

“And pray what would my noble brother’s advice be?” cried Laura sarcastically.
<............