anks on
me and I 'd love her all the more.'

'You're a boy; you are different! She nearly killed me, if that's what
you call love!'

'Nearly killed you, indeed! Not a bit of it! I 'm thinking it would
take a lot to finish you off. Many and many a trick would have to be
played before you 'd expire.'

'You are talking in a very rude way,' said Leucha.

'I 'm not. I know what I 'm about!'

'Then you surely do not dare to tell me to my face that your cousin did
right in frightening me so terribly?'

'I 'm not saying anything so silly. I know too well the kind you are
made of, Leuchy Villiers. Hollyhock did wrong, and Meg did, to my
thinking, a sight worse.'

'Meg was really noble,' said Leucha.

'If _that's_ your idea of nobleness, keep it and treasure it all your
life.'

'Meg had to save her soul,' said Leucha.

'Oh, my word!' cried Jasper; 'and is our darling Hollyhock's soul of no
account?'

'Well, she thinks nothing of the freak which nearly killed me.'

'Nothing of it? Little you know! Do you forget she sat up with you
resting against her breast the whole of the first night, and had a
camp-bed put into your room by doctor's orders and your own wish, and
sang you to sleep with that voice of hers that would melt the heart of
a stone, no less? If she loved you? But it has not melted your heart.
If she was what you think her to be, would she have troubled herself as
she did about you? Would she give up her sport and her fun and her
joy, her pleasures, for one like you?'

'I 'm the daughter of the Earl of Crossways,' said Leucha.

'Well,' answered Jasper, 'I can't say much for his daughter. I tell
you frankly and truly, Leucha, that if you were a brave lass and
well-bred, you 'd take a joke as a joke, and think no more about it;
but, being what you are, I have little hope of you. It's the best
thing that could have happened to Hollyhock to have got rid of one like
you. You are not fit to hold a candle to her. I have no liking for
you, and now I'm going back to the Annex. I cannot stand the sight of
you, with your sulks and your obstinacy. Oh! the bonnie lass, that you
think so cruel. I can only say that I hope she will get a better
friend than _you_, Leucha Villiers.'

After this speech, Leucha was found by Jasmine in a flood of tears.
Jasper had returned to the Annex, his sole remark to his mother being
that he was wasting his precious time at The Garden over the conversion
of a hope