y and loaded with admiration, isn't
the worst; if it _is_ trying to enjoy it all between two
guardians. Do they keep you very close, my dear?'

('I think she is a little crazy,' thought the girl. 'No
wonder--with such eyes.'--) 'A dozen could hardly do that,
ma'am, thank you. Makes a more difficult fence to leap, of
course--but when you are used to the exercise--'

Mrs. Coles laughed, a thin peculiar sort of laugh, not
enjoyable to the hearer, though seeming to be enjoyed by the
person from whom it proceeded. She had the air of being
amused.

'Well,' she said, 'I should like to see you leap over fences
of Dane's making. He used to do that for mine sometimes; it
would serve him right. Does he know you do it?'

Unmistakeably, by degrees, Hazel felt her pulses quickening.
There was more in this than mere banter; it was too connected
and full of purpose for insanity. What was it? what dread was
softly creeping towards her; and she could hear only a
breaking twig or a rushing leaf? She must be very wary!

'I have been riding in other directions,' she answered
carelessly. 'And not leaping much at all.'

The laugh just appeared again.

'Of course I do not know, but I fancy, his fences would not be
easy to get over; Dane's, I mean. He was a very difficult boy
to manage. Indeed I cannot say that I ever did manage him. He
would have his own way, and my father always take sides with
him. So everybody. So Primrose. O, Prim won't hear me say a
word against him. And I am not saying a word against him; only
I was very curious to know how he would fill his new office,
and how well you would like it, and how it would all work. It
is quite a romance, really.'

'And it is quite easy to make out a romance where none
exists,' said Miss Kennedy, in a frigid tone.

'My dear! you wouldn't say that your case is not a romance?'
said Mrs. Coles. 'I never knew one equal to it, out of books;
and in them one always thinks the situation is made up. And to
be sure, so is this; only Mr. Kennedy and Dane's father made
it up between them. Don't you call your case a romance?'

'What part of my own case?' said the girl defiantly. If people
had come to this, it was high time to stop them. 'Perhaps if
you will be kind enough to speak more in detail, I may be able
to put you right on several points.'

'My dear!' said Mrs. Coles, again with a surprised and
protecting air, through which the amusement nevertheless
shone. 'Don't you call the ter