he mean while you cannot help yourself, would it not
be better to give me the assurance that for this year you will
forego the waltz? and let things go on as they are? Field mice
always make the best of circumstances.'

'All summer,' she answered, 'you have not even taken the
trouble to forbid me! And now, forbidding will not do, but you
must use threats. They might at least wait until I had
disobeyed.'

'That is a very distant view of me indeed!' said Rollo.
'Details are lost. I will get you a lorgnette the next time I
go anywhere.'

'You had better,' said Hazel, not stopping to weigh her words
this time, 'for such distance does not lend enchantment.'--
After which the silence on her part became rather profound.

'No,' said Rollo dryly, 'I see it does not. What will you do
by and by, when you are sorry for having treated me so this
evening?'

'I daresay I shall find out when the time comes.'--

She leaned her head back against the carriage, wanting
dreadfully to get home, and put it down, and think. She could
not think with her hand held fast in that fashion,--and she
could not get it away, without making a fuss and so drawing
attention to the fact that it was not in her own keeping. One
or two slight efforts in that direction had been singularly
fruitless. So she sat still, puzzling over questions which
have perplexed older heads than hers. As, how you can have a
thing given you, and yet not seem to possess it,--and why
people cannot say words to give you pleasure, without at once
adding others to give you pain. What had she done? Mr. Falkirk
would have thought her a miracle of obedience these last two
nights; she even wondered at herself. How she had enjoyed her
home this summer! --it seemed to her that she loved every leaf
upon every tree. What could he mean by 'remove'? And here a
long, deep sigh so nearly escaped her lips, that she sat up
again in sudden haste, erect as before; but feeling
unmistakably lonely, and just a little bit forlorn.

Perhaps her companion's thoughts had come on one point near to
hers; for he gently put the little white glove back upon her
lap and left it there. His words went back to her last ones,
though after a minute's interval.

'It will come,' he said confidently. 'All the field mice of my
acquaintance are true and tender. _When_ it comes, Hazel, will
you do me justice?'

She stirred uneasily, and once or twice essayed to speak, and
did not make it out. This way of tak