broad white forehead; eyes that look right at you; clear, honest eyes,—not—at least, the sort of eyes I like to look at me. Then I see a small nose—”

“Let my nose alone, please,” said I: “I know it turns up, and I don’t want to hear you say so.”

Flora laughed. “Very well; I will leave your nose alone. Underneath it, I see two small red lips, and a little forward chin; a rather self-willed little chin, if you please, Cary—and a good figure, which has learned to hold itself up and to walk gracefully. Will that do for a description?”

“Yes,” I said, looking in the glass; “I suppose that is me.”

“Is it, Cary? That may be all I see; but is it you? Why, it is only the morocco case that holds you. You are the jewel inside, and what that is, really and fully, I cannot see. God can see it; and you can see some of it. But I can see only what you choose to show me, or, now and then, what you cannot help showing me.”

“Do you know that you are a very queer girl, Flora? Girls don’t talk in that way. Cecilia Osborne told me yesterday she thought you a very curious girl indeed.”

“I think my match might be found,” said Flora, rather drily. “For one thing, Cary, you must remember I have had nothing to do with other girls except Annas Keith. Father and Angus have been my only companions; and a girl who has neither mother nor sisters perhaps gets out of girls’ ways in some respects.”

“But you are not the only ‘womankind,’ as Father calls it, in the house?” said I.

“Oh, no, there is Helen Raeburn,” answered Flora: “but she is an old woman, and she is not in my station. She would not teach me girls’ ways.”

“Then who taught you manners, Flora?”

“Oh, Father saw to all that Helen could not,” she said. “Helen could teach me common decencies, of course; such as not to eat with my fingers, and to shake hands, and so forth: but the little niceties of ladylike behaviour that were beyond her—Father saw to those.”

“Well, I think you have very pleasant manners, Flora. I only wish you were not quite so grave.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Miss Caroline Courtenay,” said Flora, dropping me a courtesy. “I would rather be too grave than too giddy.”

That very afternoon, Cecilia Osborne asked me to walk up the Scar with her. Somehow, when she asks you to do a thing, you feel as if you must do it. I do not like that sort of enchanted feeling at all. However, I fetched my hood and scarf, and away we went. We climbed up the Scar without much talk—in fact, it is rather too steep for that: but when we got to the top, Cecilia proposed to sit down on the bank. It was a beautiful day, and quite warm for the time of the year. So down we sat, and Cecilia pulled her sacque carefully on one side, that it should not get spoiled—she was very charmingly dressed in a sacque of purple lutestring, with such a pretty bonnet, of red velvet with a gold pompoon in front—and then she began to talk, as if she had come for that, and I believe she had. It was not long before I felt pretty sure that she had brought me there to pump me.

“How long have you known Miss Drummond?” she began.

“Well, all my life, in a fashion,” I said; “but it is nearly ten years since we met.”

“Ten years is a good deal of your life, is it not?” said Cecilia, darting at me one of those side-glances from her tawny eyes.

I tried to do it last night, and made my eyes feel so queer that I was not sure they would get right by morning.

“Well, I suppose it is,” said I; “I am not quite seventeen yet.”

“You dear little thing!” said Cecilia, imprisoning my hand. “What is Miss Drummond’s father?”

“A minister,” said I.

“A Scotch Presbyterian, I suppose?” she said, turning up her nose. I did not think she looked any prettier for it.

“Well,” said I, “I suppose he is.”

“And Mr Angus—what do they mean to make of him, do you know?”

“Flora hopes he will be a minister too. His father wishes it; but she is not sure that Angus likes the notion himself.”

“Dear me! I should think not,” said Cecilia, “He is fit for something far better.”

“What can be better?” I answered.

“You have such charming ideas!” replied Cecilia. She put in another word, which I never heard before, and I don’t know what it means. She brought it with her from the South, I suppose. Unso—unsophy—no, unsophisticated—I think that was it. It sounded uncommon long and fine, I know.

“I suppose Scotch ministers have not much money?” continued Cecilia.

“I don’t know—I think not,” I answered. “But I rather fancy my Uncle Drummond has a little of his own.”

Cecilia darted another look at me, and then dropped her eyes as if she were studying the grass.

“And Mr Keith?” she said presently, “is he a relation?”

“I don’t know much about him,” said I, “only what I have heard Flora say. He is no relation of theirs, I believe. I think he is the squire’s son.”

“The squire’s son!” cried Cecilia, in a more interested tone. “And who is the squire?—is he rich?—where is the place?”

“As to who he is,” said I, “he is Mr Keith, I suppose. I don’t know a bit whether he is rich or poor. I forget the name of the place—I think it is Abbotsmuir, or something like that. Either an abbot or a monk has something to do with it.”

“And you don’t know if Mr Keith is a rich man?” said Cecilia, I thought in rather a disappointed tone.

“No, I don’t,” said I. “I can ask Flora, if you want to know.”

“Not for the world!” cried Cecilia, laying her hand again on mine. “Don’t on any account let Miss Drummond know that I asked you such a question. If you like to ask from yourself, you know—well, that is another matter; but not from me, on any consideration.”

“I don’t understand you, Miss Osborne,” said I.

“No, you dear little thing, I believe you don’t understand me,” said Cecilia, kissing me. “What pretty hair you have, and how nice you keep it, to be sure!—so smooth and glossy! Come, had we not better be going down, do you think?”

So down we came, and found dinner ready; and I do not think I ever thought of it again till I was going to bed. Then I said to Flora,—“Do you like Cecilia Osborne?”

“I—think we had better not talk about people, Cary, if you please.”

But there was such a pause where I have drawn that long stroke, that I am sure that was not what she intended to say at first.

“Then you don’t,” said I, making a hit at the truth, and, I think, hitting it in the bull’s eye. “Well, no more do I.”

Flora looked at me, but did not speak. Oh, how different her look is from Cecilia’s sudden flashes!

“She has been trying to pump me, I am sure, about you and Angus, and Mr Keith,” said I; “and I think it is quite as well I knew so little.”

“What about?” said Flora.

“Oh, about money, mostly,” said I. “Whether Uncle had much money, and if Mr Keith was a rich man, and all on like that. I can’t bear girls who are always thinking about money.”

Flora drew a long breath. “That is it, is it?” she said, in a low voice, as she tied her nightcap, but it was rather as if she were speaking to herself than to me. “Cary, perhaps I had better answer you. I am afraid Miss Osborne is a very dangerous girl; and she would be more so than she is if she were a shade more clever, so as to hide her cards a little better. Don’t tell her anything you can help.”

“But what shall I say if she asks me again? because she wanted me not to tell you that she had asked, but to get to know as if I wanted it myself.”

“Tell her to ask me,” said Flora, with more spirit than I had expected from her.

When Cecilia began again (as she did) asking me the same sort of