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18 WILD MARGARET. |
Blair laughed. ea
“Nonsense, darling, you dreamt it!”’ he said. cee
_. Margaret smiled. a od Se!
-** Perhaps co, but it was a very lifelike dream then, and
to puta touch of reality to it, Lsaw a keg of something—
spirits or tobacco—in the kitchen the next morning. .
asked Mrs. Day what it was, and she said, ‘ Water.’ But
‘there is a capital well just outside the door!” ;
“Upon my word you would make a first-class detective, .
Madge!’ said Lord Blair, with a laugh, in which she .
“joined. an
‘Should I not?, I had a great mind to ask Mrs. Day to”
let me have a glass of the water, but I felt that if I were
right, the consequences would be tooembarrassing.”
‘‘T should think so,’”’ said Blair. ‘‘ And you imagine
that Day and his son are going on a smuggling expedition
now?” and he looked at the boat dancing on.the waves be--
neath them.
- Margaret nodded. ( =
‘Yes, Ido,” she replied lightly. ‘‘I think that-pres-
ently Mr. Day, with his little boat, will meet one of those
rakish-looking craft in the offing there, and then the vak-
ish-looking craft—isn’t that the proper nautical phrase?
“Tirst rate!” he assented, languidly. ‘You, woul
make your fortune as a novelist, Madge.’’
~— Will put a couple of small barrels on. board of Day’s
boat,’? she said, pinching his ear tenderly. ‘‘ Day W1
wait until the tide turns, and then, it being dark, will sail .
into Appleford harbor with a cargo of fish—and the two |.
barrels. No one will suspect him, least of all the merry
and comfortable coastguard; and those two barrels, afte!
resting there for anight, will be sent off to Exeter—or some” -
where else!”’.
Lord Blair laughed with indolent enjoyment.
~ ‘* Bravo!’ he said. ‘‘ Well, Austin is better than his
‘word, He said Appleford was pretty, but he didn’t ad
that it possessed all the charms that you credit 1t with.
: Once more the faint cloud crossed Margaret’s happy
ace.
‘*‘Have you heard from him?” she asked, after a MO
. Ment’s pause. .
Lord Blair pulled a letter from his pocket. ae
-**’'Yes, this came this morning. ,I didn’t read it through.
Austin writes such awfully long letters. Read it yourself,
darling, and tell me what it’s all about.”’
_ Margaret read it. ee
‘There is not much,’”’ she said. ‘He says that no one
suspects what—what we did at Sefton, and that he has
told every one that you have gone abroad,” wo