CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. 

A SOIREE WILDLY INTERRUPTED, AND FOLLOWED UP BY SURPRISING REVELATIONS. 

One afternoon Captain Lee and Emma called on Mrs Tipps, and found her engaged in earnest conversation with Netta. The captain, who was always in a boiling-over condition, and never felt quite happy except when in the act of planning or carrying out some scheme for the increase of general happiness, soon discovered that Netta was discussing the details of a little treat which she meant to give to the boys and girls of a Sunday-school which she and her mother superintended. With all his penetration he did not, however, find out that the matter which called most for consideration was the financial part of the scheme--in other words, how to accomplish the end desired with extremely limited means. He solved the question for them, however, by asserting that he intended to give all the scholars of all the Sunday-schools in the neighbourhood a treat, and of course meant to include Netta's school among the rest-- unless, of course, she possessed so much exclusive pride as to refuse to join him. 

There was no resisting Captain Lee. As well might a red-skin attempt to stop Niagara. When once he had made up his mind to "go in" for something, no mortal power could stop him. He might indeed be _turned_. Another object of interest, worthy of pursuit and judiciously put before him, might perhaps induce him to abandon a previous scheme; but once his steam was up, as John Marrot used to say, you could not get him to blow it off into the air. He was unlike the iron horse in that respect, although somewhat like him in the rigour of his action. Accordingly the thing was fixed. Invitations were sent out to all the schools and to all who took an interest in them, and the place fixed on was a field at the back of Mrs Tipps's villa. 
Who did Lee visit?
One afternoon Captain Lee and Emma called on Mrs Tipps, and found her engaged in earnest conversation with Netta