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 brothers were plainly not intending to linger more than a moment, but the spectacle of a bevy of girls dancing without male partners seemed to amuse the third, and make him in no hurry to move on. He unstrapped his knapsack, put it, with his stick, on the hedge-bank, and opened the gate.

‘What are you going to do, Angel?’ asked the eldest.

‘I am inclined to go and have a fling with them. Why not all of us—just for a minute or two—it will not detain us long?’

‘No—no; nonsense!’ said the first. ‘Dancing in public with a troop of country hoydens—suppose we should be seen! Come along, or it will be dark before we get to Stourcastle, and there’s no place we can sleep at nearer than that; besides, we must get through another chapter of A Counterblast to Agnosticism before we turn in, now I have taken the trouble to bring the book.’

‘All right—I’ll overtake you and Cuthbert in five minutes; don’t stop; I give my word that I will, Felix.’

The two elder reluctantly left him and walked on, taking their brother’s knapsack to relieve