f look so miserable. Perhaps some
time she would reward him--after a long while, though. Thus, poor Jeff
spent many a wretched hour cursing his fate and cursing Pick Lawrence.
He thought he would create a diversion by paying desperate attention to
Margaret's guest; but it resolved itself on the first opportunity into
his opening his heart and confiding all his woes to her. In doing this
he fell into the greatest contradiction, declaring one moment that no
one suspected that he was in love with Margaret, and the next vowing
that she had every reason to know he adored her, as he had been in love
with her all her life. It was one afternoon in the drawing-room. Rose,
with much sapience, assured him that no woman could have but one reason
to know it. Jeff dolefully inquired what it was.

Rising and walking up to him she said in a mysterious whisper,--.

"Tell her."

Jeff, after insisting that he had been telling her for years, lapsed
into a declaration of helpless perplexity. "How can I tell her more than
I have been telling her all along?" he groaned. Rose said she would show
him. She seated herself on the sofa, spread out her dress and placed him
behind her.

"Now, do as I tell you--no, not so,--_so_;--now lean over,--put
your arm--no, it is not necessary to touch me," as Jeff, with prompt
apprehension, fell into the scheme, and declared that he was all right
in a rehearsal, and that it was only in the real drama he failed. "Now
say 'I love you.'" Jeff said it. They were in this attitude when the
door opened suddenly and Margaret stood facing them, her large eyes
opened wider than ever. She backed out and shut the door.

Jeff sprang up, his face very red.

Lawyers know that the actions of a man on being charged with a crime are
by no means infallible evidence of his guilt,--but it is hard to satisfy
juries of this fact. If the juries were composed of women perhaps it
would be impossible.

The ocular demonstration of a man's arm around a girl's waist is
difficult to explain on more than one hypothesis.

After this Margaret treated Jeff with a rigor which came near destroying
the friendship of a lifetime; and Jeff became so desperate that inside
of a week he had had his first quarrel with Lawrence, who had begun to
pay very devoted attention to Margaret, and as that young man was in no
mood to lay balm on a bruised wound, mischief might have been done had
not the Major arrived opportunely on the scene just as the qu