question--why doesn't your sister want your mother to come to her?"

Billy gave him one of his shrewd glances. "She's told you that, has she?
Well, you know the mater is rather a queer fish, and I doubt very much if
she'd come if you asked her."

"My good fellow!" Scott said. "Not if she were dying?"

"I doubt it," said Billy, unmoved. "You see, the mater hasn't much use
for Dinah, except as a maid-of-all work. Never has had. It's not
altogether her fault. It's just the way she's made."

"Good heavens!" said Scott, and added, as if to himself, "That little
fairy thing!"

"She can't help it," said Billy. "She can't get on with the female
species. It's like cats, you know,--a sort of jealousy."

"And your father?" questioned Scott, the hard look growing in his eyes.

"Oh, Dad!" said Billy, smiling tolerantly. "He's all right--quite a
decent sort. But you wouldn't get him to leave home in the middle of the
hunting season. He's one of the Whips."

Scott's hand had tightened unconsciously to a grip. Billy looked at him
in surprised interrogation, and was amazed to see a heavy frown drawing
the colourless brows. There was a fiery look in the pale eyes also that
he had never seen before.

He waited in silence for developments, being of a wary disposition, and