But Agnes was fat first and good-natured afterwards; those were her guiding principles in life. She was profuse in her sympathy for Dolores, but she hastily devoured the peach, explaining that it would spoil it to divide it; the juice ran out so.

“Now what would you all like to do?” demanded Mrs. Jallatt by way of diversion. “The professional conjurer whom I had engaged has failed me at the last moment. Can any of you recite?”

There were symptoms of a general panic. Dolores was known to recite “Locksley Hall” on the least provocation. There had been occasions when her opening line, “Comrades, leave me here a little,” had been taken as a literal injunction by a large section of her hearers. There was a murmur of relief when Rollo hastily declared that he could do a few conjuring tricks. He had never done one in his life, but those two visits to the library had goaded him to unusual recklessness.