Mr. Blyth was astir betimes on the morning after Mat and young Thorpe had visited him in the studio. Manfully determined¹ not to give way an inch to his own continued reluctance² to leave home, he packed up his brushes and colors, and started on his portrait-painting tour by the early train which he had originally settled to travel by.

Although he had every chance of spending his time, during his absence, agreeably as well as profitably, his inexplicable³ sense of uneasiness at being away from home, remained with him even on the railway; defying all the exhilarating influences of rapid motion and change of scene, and oppressing him as inveterately⁴ as it had oppressed him the night before. Bad, however, as his spirits now were, they would have been much worse, if he had known of two remarkable⁵ domestic events, which it had been the policy of his household to keep strictly⁶ concealed⁷ from him on the day of his departure.

When Mr. Blyth’s cook descended⁸ the first thing in the morning to air the studio in the usual way, by opening the garden door, she was not a little amazed and alarmed to find that, although it was closed, it was neither bolted nor locked. She communicated this circumstance (reproachfully, of course) to the housemaid, who answered (indignantly, as was only natural) by reiterating⁹ her assertion of the past night, that she had secured the door properly at six o’clock in the evening. Polly, appealing to contradictory¹⁰ visible fact, rejoined that the thing was impossible. Patty, holding fast to affirmatory personal knowledge, retorted that the thing had been done. Upon this, the two had a violent quarrel—followed by a sulky silence—succeeded by an affectionate reconciliation—terminated by a

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