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132 sion which clouded his jolly face betrayed him.

"Sir, I was at Rede Hall this morning, I admit," said he, looking defiantly at the officer. "But as for what I did there, you have no right to put such an interpretation as you do upon my visit."

"Do you deny, sir, that you mentioned we were on our way thither?" roared the brigadier.

"I deny, sir, that you have any right to put such questions to me," retorted the parson quite as loudly.

The gentlemen were both much heated; and it began to look, as they advanced their excited faces nearer and nearer over the table, till the tails of their bob-wigs stuck up quivering in the air, as if from mere words they would ere long come to blows.

When suddenly there appeared, in the doorway of the narrow little entrance to the kitchen which filled the corner beyond the fireplace, a peacemaker in the shape of handsome Joan.

She had evidently been engaged in some culinary occupation, for there were traces of flour still to be seen on her round arms, under the long black mittens which she had hastily