A SPY IN THE HOUSEHOLD 21

to be hunting for you all over the garden, as I did when
you hid yourself last week.”

It was indeed but a short time until he returned.

“My father only wanted to tell me that he is just starting
for Bristowe’s, and as it is over twenty miles away he may
not return until to-morrow.”

“T don’t like that man’s face who brought the message
to you, Charlie.”

“Don’t you?” the boy said carelessly. “TI have not
noticed him much; he has not been many months with us.
What are you thinking of?” he asked a minute later, see-
ing that his cousin looked troubled.

“I don’t know that I ought to tell you, Charlie. You
know my father does not think the same way as yours about
things.”

“I should rather think he doesn’t,” Charlie laughed.
“There is no secret about that, Ciceley; but they don’t
quarrel over it. Last time your father and mother came
over here I dined with them for the first time, and I noticed
there was not a single word said about politics. They
chatted over the crops, and the chances of a war in Kurope,
and of the quarrel between Holstein and Denmark, and
whether the young king of Sweden would aid the duke, who
seems to be threatened by Saxony as well as by Denmark.
I did not know anything about it, and thought it was rather
stupid; but my father and yours both seemed of one mind,
and were as good friends as if they were in equal agree-
ment on all other points. But what has that to do with
Nicholson, for that is the man’s name who came out just
now?”

“Tt does not seem to have much to do with it,” she said
doubtfully, “and yet perhaps it does. You know my mother
is not quite of the same opinion as my father, although she
never says so to him; but when we are alone together some-
times she shakes her head and says she fears that trouble