"I adore yours, Miss Armstrong," I asserted, yielding

myself further to the joy of idiocy, and delighting in

the mockery and changing moods of her talk. I did

not make her out; indeed, I preferred not to! I was

not then,-and I am not now, thank God,-of an analytical

turn of mind. And as I grow older I prefer,

even after many a blow, to take my fellow human beings

a good deal as I find them. And as for women, old

or young, I envy no man his gift of resolving them into

elements. As well carry a spray of arbutus to the laboratory

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or subject the enchantment of moonlight upon

running water to the flame and blow-pipe as try to

analyze the heart of a girl,-particularly a girl who

paddles a canoe with a sure stroke and puts up a good

race with a rabbit.

A lamp shone ahead of us at the entrance of one of

the houses, and lights appeared in all the buildings.

"If I knew your window I should certainly sing under

it,-except that you're going home! You didn't tell

me why they were deporting you."

"I'm really ashamed to! You would never-"

"Oh, yes, I would; I'm really an old friend!" I insisted,

feeling more like an idiot every minute.

"Well, don't tell! But they caught me flirting-with

the grocery boy! Now aren't you disgusted?"

"Thoroughly! I can't believe it! Why, you'd a lot

better flirt with me," I suggested boldly.

"Well, I'm to be sent away for good at Christmas. I

may come back then if I can square myself. My!

That's slang,-isn't it horrid?"

"The Sisters don't like slang, I suppose?"

"They loathe it! Miss Devereux-you know who she

is!-she spies on us and tells."

"You don't say so; but I'm not surprised at her. I've

heard about her!" I declared bitterly.

We had reached the door, and I expected her to fly;

but she lingered a moment.

"Oh, if you know her! Perhaps you're a spy, too!

It's just as well we should never meet again, Mr. Glenarm,"

she declared haughtily.

"The memory of these few meetings will always linger

with me, Miss Armstrong," I returned in an imitation

of her own tone.

"I shall scorn to remember you!"-and she folded

her arms under the cloak tragically.

"Our meetings have been all too few, Miss Armstrong.

Three, exactly, I believe!"

"I see you prefer to ignore the first time I ever saw

you," she said, her hand on the door.

"Out there in your canoe? Never! And you've forgiven

me for overhearing you and the chaplain on the

wall-please!"

She grasped the knob of the door and paused an instant

as though pondering.

"I make it four times, not counting once in the road

and other times when you didn't know, Squire Glenarm!

I'm a foolish little girl to have remembered the first. I

see now how b-l-i-n-d I have been."




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