hy should it matter what he was?"

"Do you really think that, Miss Janie?" Bob was almost at the point of
an advance.

"I mean--why should it matter to you?"

The explanation checked the advance.

"Oh, I--I see. I don't know, I'm sure. Well then, I don't know how to
deal with him."

"Well, good-by."

"Good-by, Miss Janie."

"Are you coming to see us again, ever?"

"If you ask me, I----"

"And am I coming again to Mingham? Although you don't ask me."

"Will you really?"

"Oh, you do ask me? When I ask you to ask me!"

"Any day you'll----"

"No, I'll surprise you. Good-by. Good-by really."

The conversation, it must be admitted, sounds commonplace when verbally
recorded. Yet he would be a despondent man who considered it altogether
discouraging; Mina did not think Janie's glances discouraging either.
But Bob Broadley, a literal man, found no warrant for fresh hope in any
of the not very significant words which he repeated to himself as he
rode home up the valley of the Blent. He suffered under modesty; it
needed more than coquetry to convince him that he exercised any
attraction over the rich and brilliant (brilliance also is a matter of
comparison) Miss Iver, on whose favor Mr Tristram waited and at whose
side Major Duplay danced attendance.

"You're a dreadful flirt, Janie," said Mina, as she kissed her friend.

Janie was not a raw girl; she was a capable young woman of
two-and-twenty.

"Nonsense," she said rather crossly. "It's not flirting to take time to
make up your mind."

"It looks like it, though."

"And I've no reason to suppose they've any one of them made up their
minds."

"I should think you could do that for them pretty soon. Besides, uncle
has, anyhow."

"I'm to be your aunt, am I?"

"Oh, he's only an uncle by accident."

"Yes, I think that's true. Shall we have a drive soon?"

"To Mingham? Or to Blent Hall?"

"Not Blent. I wait my lord's pleasure to see me."

"Yes, that's just how I feel about him," cried Mina eagerly.

"But all the same----"

"No, I won't hear a word of good about him. I hate him!"

Janie smiled in an indulgent but rather troubled way. Her problem was
serious; she could not afford the Imp's pettish treatment of the world
and the people in it. Janie had responsibilities--banks and buildings
full of them--and a heart to please into the bargain. Singularly
complicated questions are rather cruelly put before young women, who
must solve them on peril of