“I did not mean to offend you,” she said, growing a little paler, but at the same time more rigid.

“What sort of mother do you take me for? Offended, indeed! Would you take it kindly, I should like to know, if I had the audacity to say such a thing of one of your girls?”

“I spoke as to a mother who knew what girls are like!”

“You don’t know what my Bab is like!” cried Mrs. Wylder, adding something very much like an imprecation which would shock many.

Lady Ann was offended, and seriously—how could she ally herself with such a woman? But she was silent. For once in her life she did not know the proper thing to say.

Mrs. Wylder rose, turned away, and with a backward glance of blazing wrath, left the room and the house.

“Home, and be quick about it!” she said to the footman as he closed the door of the carriage, and she disappeared in a whirlwind.

From the library sir Wilton saw her stormy exit and departure. “By Jove!” he said to himself, “a hundred to one my lady was insolent to her! Said something cool about her madcap girl, probably! She’s the right sort, by Jove, that little Bab! If only my Richard now, leathery fellow, would glue onto her! I’ll put him up to it, I will! Arthur and she indeed! As if a plate of porridge like Arthur would draw a fireflash like Bab! I’d give my soul to have such a girl!”

It did not occur to him that his soul for Barbara would scarcely be fair barter.

The instant she reached home, Mrs. Wylder sent for her daughter, and demanded, fury still blazing in her eyes, what she had been doing to give that beast of a lady Ann a right to talk.

“Tell me first how she talked, mama,” returned Barbara, used to her mother’s ways and not annoyed at being addressed so. “I can’t have been doing anything very bad, for she’s been doing what she can to get me and keep me.”

“She has? And you never told me!”

“I didn’t think it worth telling you. She’s been setting papa on to me too.”

“Oh, I see! And you wouldn’t set him and me on each other! Well, I’ll have no buying and selling of my goods behind my back! If you speak one more civil word to that young Lestrange, you shall hear from me!”

“I will not speak an uncivil word to him, mama. He has never given me occasion to. But it won’t break my heart if I never see him again. If you like I won’t go near the place. Theodora’s the only one I care about—and she’s as dull as she is good.”

“What did the kangaroo mean by saying you were sweet on somebody not worthy of you?”

“I know what she meant, mother. But the man is worthy of a far better woman than me—and I hope he’ll get her someday.”