Priscilla's Spies

rm when she leaped off her bicycle in front of the station. As she passed through the ga

e my cousin Frank, I supp

gazed

riscilla?"

among the salmon and the grouse. So far as he had thought of Priscilla at all he had placed her in the background, a trim, unobtrusive maiden, who came down to dessert after dinner and was kept under proper control at other times by a governess. It shocke

id Priscilla. "Can't

h an accident

being seasick. Some people do, you know, and they're never much good for anything. I'm glad you're not

front of her dress as she spoke.

ed my ankle,

leman's leg is broke on him. That's what the ticket-co

. "The station-master's wife would lend me a pair of sci

uldn't,"

sock on over the damp table napkin. He had no

nd she attended a course of Ambulance lectures last term and learnt all about first aid on the battle-field. I wanted to go to those lectures frightful

essarily with the human body, might be considered by some people slightly unsuitable for young girls, and

's Aunt Juliet's latest. There's alw

"If I was once up I

g up," said the station-master. "We'll ha

nd directions while they did so. Then she took

ng your luggage," she sai

d to the

the new drain that they're digging outside the court house. There's nothing worse for a

ode alongside, keeping withi

e's not brok

tell me. Pretty rotten luck this, for you, Cousin Frank, on account of the fishing. You can't possibly fish and the river's in

can rest my leg a bit-I don't think it's r

ter hols. He very nearly died afterwards on account of having to travel up to Dublin to go to a nursing home when his temperature

part of the regular curriculum even on the modern side. Frank Mannix had only the vaguest idea of what Miss Lenta

said, "is simply

e the slip. If you turn your head you'll see her. But perhaps it hurts you to turn your head. I

ven if each one is alone on his side, is confined almost entirely to objects on one side of the road. Only by twisting his neck in a most uncomfortable way can any one see what lies directly behind him. Frank made th

me it may. Peter Walsh was telling me the other day that it's perfectly splendid for rheumatism. I shouldn't wonder a bit if sprained ankles and rheumatism are much the same sort of thing, only with different

boats ve

a that he had not come to Rosnacree to be her playmate and companion. He had come to fish salmon in company with her father and such other grown men as might from time to time present themselves. Nu

rn and let your legs dangle over in the water. I've often done that

eeky" in a very high degree. A lower schoolboy in Edmondstone House, if he had ventured to speak in such a way, would have been beaten

o manage it some day," h

steps by the butler and the coachman. Sir Lucius expressed

eer up, Frank, I daresay it won't turn out to be very tedious. We'll have you hobbling along in a week or a fortnight. We've a good while before us yet. I'll get up O'H

n the sprained ankle. Priscilla, describing the scene afterwards to Rose, the under housemaid, said that Miss Lentaigne's eyes gleamed and sparkled with joy. Every one in the household had for many weeks carefully refrained from i

and I may have a little ta

did not think it quite fair to subject Frank to a course of Christian Science. But he was also very much afraid of his si

lly not at all sure that your theory quit

ace expressed a tolerant patience with t

at kind of thing where there's nothing actually visible, I'm sure it works out admirably, quite admirably, but with a sprained ankle! Come now, Juliet

ot worth making a fuss a

not really any swelling, although Frank, in his ignorance, might honestly thin

tian method of dealing with illness, was very polite to Miss Lentaigne during luncheon. He talked to her about Parliament and its doings as a subject likely to interest her, assuming the air of a man who knows the inner secrets of the Cabinet. He did, in fact, know a good deal about the habits and manners of our legislators, having picke

a hammock chair agreeably placed under the shade of a lime tree on the lawn. When Sir Lucius and Priscilla, laden with fishing gear, passed him, he was still making himself politely agreeable to Miss Lentaigne. Priscilla winked at

ng alone under the lime tree. He was in a singularly chastened mood and inclined to

said, "is that old au

ted to the phraseology of an undignified schoolboy of the lower fifth. The veneer of grown

fully clever, what's called intellectual. Y

t, blow it all, it's swelled th

ift of an already short skirt she surveyed her own calf curiously

e didn't

on telling me I only thought it was sprained. I never heard

it out." "Oh, it didn't last long. None of them do, you know. That's our great consolation; though we rather hope the Christian Science will on account of its doing us no particular harm. She doesn't mind what we eat or drink, which is a great comfort. She can't you know, according to her principles, because when there's no such thing as being sick it can't matter how much whipped cream or anything of that sort you eat just before you go to bed at night. She didn't like it a bit when I got up on Christmas night and foraged out nearly a quarter of a cold plum pudding. She was just going up to bed and she caught me. She wanted awfully to stop me eating it, but she couldn't without giving the whole show away, so I ate it before her very eyes. That's the beauty of Christian Science." "But I say, Priscilla, weren't you sick?" "Not a bit. When Father heard about it next mor

ll leave me alone now? Or will she wan

"unless you give in that

can't

of a tooth that she wouldn't have out. Aunt Juliet kept at her, reading little bits out of books and kind of praying, in passages and pantries and places, wherever she met Rose. That went on for more than a week

t down to the boat to-morrow. You said something

ather disappointed at the time, not thinking that the old chair would be any use, whereas I wanted the pump. Now it turns out to be exactly what we want, which shows that well directed labour is never real

nings his brilliant catch had cut short-might say and think if he saw the vehicle. But the Uppingham captain was not likely to be in Rosnacree. Christian Science was a more threatening danger. He pictured to himself th

y near at hand. He acc

that her mother says anything will come in useful if you only keep it long enough; but I don't know whether that's true. I don't think it can be, quite, for I tried it once with a used up exercise-book and it didn't seem to be the s

be of any use if you kept it for centuries. What's