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 16 indeed almost every one in the village—made a lot of inquiries about her. He did not succeed in finding out why she called herself “the Honourable,” but the questions he asked her made her so angry that she packed up her trunks and left the village at once.

I met the Colonel the day after she left, and told him I was afraid we should all miss her. The Colonel chuckled in a self-satisfied way.

“I told you we ought to get rid of her,” he said, “and we have.”

“You don’t mean to say you think she was really a spy?” I said.

“She was a good deal worse,” said the Colonel; “she was a public nuisance.”

Later on the Colonel took a kindlier view of Mrs. Mimms.

“Only for her,” he said to me a week ago, “we shouldn’t have had Boy Scouts here. We have quite a good company now. She did us that much good, anyhow.”

The Colonel did her no more than bare justice. Our Scouts, though they have caught no more spies, have improved the general tone of the village. The Colonel is their commanding officer, and, though I do not say so in public, they have done him a lot of good.