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with a laugh, but it did not disturb her. She danced to his piping, but it is believed she lacked the adventurous spirit. Now Robin might fume at the mystery with which the father chose to wrap himself about, but Robin enjoyed a chequered career, and had an impish dare-devilry that led him into more scrapes than the old gentleman devised. Withal he surveyed the world with a seriousness that Prudence lacked. He had enthusiasms, and saw life as something more than the amusing pageant Prudence thought it.
    It seemed he had taken this last, unlucky venture to heart. To be sure, he had had a closer view of it than his sister. She supposed it was his temperament made him enthusiastic for a venture entered into in a spirit of adventure only, and at the father’s bidding. She remembered he had wept after Culloden, with his head in her lap at the old house in Perth—wept in a passion of fury and heartbreak, and dashed away the tears with an oath, and a vow that he hated lost causes. To Prudence it was a matter of indifference whether Stewart Charles or German George sat the throne; she suspected her sire of a like indifference, discounting heroics. They were swept into this rebellion for—God knew what cause; they were entangled in its meshes before they knew it. That was Mr Colney’s way. He made a fine speech, and it seemed they were all Jacobites. A year before they were entirely French, at Florence; before that there was a certain gaming house at Frankfort, whose proprietor of a sudden swept off his son and daughter to dip fingers in a pie of M. de Saxe’s making.
    French, German, Jacobite—it was all one to Prudence. But this England was different. She conceived a fondness for it, and found it homelike. Doubtless it was the mother in her, that big, beautiful, smiling creature who had died at Dieppe when Robin was a child.
    She remarked on it to Robin next morning, before their departure for London.
    Robin laughed at her; he was busy with the painting of his face. ‘Lord, my dear, you’re the very picture of English solidity,’ he said. ‘Do you ride with the mountain?’
    ‘So I believe,’ said Miss Prudence. Her eye fell on John, packing away Master Robin’s razors. ‘La, child, have you shaved? And you with not a hair to your chin!’
    This drew a grim smile from the servant. ‘You’d best have a care, the pair of you,’ he said. ‘We’re off to put our heads in a noose. The gentleman with the sleepy eyes sees things, I’ll warrant you.’
    ‘What, do you shy away from the mountain?’ Robin said. ‘I might engage to run in circles round it.’
    The man looked upon his young master with rough affection. ‘Ay, you’re a cunning one, Master Robin, but the big gentleman’s awake for all you think him so dull.’
    Prudence sat saddle-wise across a chair, and leaned her arms on the back of it. Chin in hand she regarded John, and said lazily: ‘Where’s the old gentleman, John?’
    There was no expression in the stolid face. ‘I’ve lived with him more years than you, Miss Prue, and I don’t take it upon myself to answer that.’
    ‘How long have you lived with him, John?’
    ‘Since before you were born, mistress.’
    Robin put down the hare’s foot, and got up. ‘Ay, you’re devilish close, a’n’t you, John? Maybe you know what he’ll be at now?’
    ‘Maybe I do, maybe I don’t,’ was all the answer vouchsafed him. ‘What’s to be your ladyship’s dress to-day?’
    Robin came down to the coffee-room twenty minutes later in a dimity gown and pink ribands. The hood was cast aside in favour of a straw hat with rosettes, and more ribands, but Prudence, very sober in fawn breeches, and a coat of claret-coloured cloth, carried a fine mantle over her arm, which was presently put about Madam Robin’s shoulders.
    Miss Letty was agog to be off. They set forward in good time, Robin and the lady seated demurely in the chaise, with the seeming Mr Merriot and Sir Anthony riding a little way behind,