d the girl went on: "He was not the
least abashed at having refused; he stayed till the last, and as we came
out together and he was going my way, I let him walk home with me. He's
a jay, but he isn't a common jay." Bessie leaned forward and tried to
implant some notion of Jeff's character and personality in her aunt's
mind.

Miss Lynde listened attentively enough, but she merely asked, when all
was said: "And why was Alan vexed with you about him?"

"Well," said the girl, falling back into her chair, "generally because
this man's a jay, and particularly because he's been rather a baddish
jay, I believe. He was suspended in his first year for something or
other, and you know poor Alan's very particular! But Molly Enderby says
Freddy Lancaster gives him the best of characters now." Bessie pulled
down her mouth, with an effect befitting the notion of repentance and
atonement. Then she flashed out: "Perhaps he had been drinking when he
got into trouble. Alan could never forgive him for that."

"I think," said her aunt, "it is to your brother's credit that he is
anxious about your associations."

"Oh, very much!" shouted Bessie, with a burst of laughter. "And as he
isn't practically so, I ought to have been more patient with his theory.
But when he began to scold me I lost my temper, and I gave him a few
wholesome truths in the guise of taunts. That was what made him go away,
I suppose."

"But I don't really see," her aunt pursued,--"what occasion he had to be
angry with you in this instance."

"Oh, I do!" said Bessie. "Mr. Durgin isn't one to inspire the casual
beholder with the notion of his spiritual distinction. His face is so
rude and strong, and he has such a primitive effect in his clothes, that
you feel as if you were coming down the street with a prehistoric man
that the barbers and tailors had put a 'fin de siecle' surface on." At
the mystification which appeared in her aunt's face the girl laughed
again. "I should have been quite as anxious, if I had been in Alan's
place, and I shall tell him so, sometime. If I had not been so
interested in the situation I don't believe I could have kept my
courage. Whenever I looked round, and found that prehistoric man at my
elbow, it gave me the creeps, a little, as if he were really carrying me
off to his cave. I shall try to express that to Alan."

XXXI.

The ladies finished their tea, and the butler came and took the
cups away. Miss Lynde remained silent in