Page:Alice Stuyvesant - The Vanity Box.djvu/86

 Ian Barr returned to-day, and was seen going into the woods, but no one saw him come out again. The tale is that it was her ladyship who lost Mr. Barr his place as steward, and everybody knows that he was the only person she seemed to have a dislike for. Mr. Barr was always a young gentleman with a high temper, madam, and they've been saying in the servants hall to-night, what if, in a sudden fit of temper"

"No, no!" Mrs. Ricardo cut him short. "I like Mr. Barr. I won't believe it of him. And yet—ah, but it must have been a tramp!"

"Let us hope so, madam," the butler responded solemnly. He had no sympathy for tramps.