l school! and if I had a hundred sons I would not let
one of them be trained under such an influence. If a boy is not to be
enthusiastic when he is young, when will he be, pray? Youth is the time
for noble dreams, for enthusiasm which carries all before it. It is the
enthusiasm of youth which keeps the world moving. None of your languid
half-measures for me!" declaimed Nan dramatically, backing into a
flower-bed in her earnestness, and trampling half a dozen begonias
beneath her heels. "Life is real--life is earnest!"

"It is indeed," cried Gervase, laughing; "and so, if you will permit me
to say so, is my uncle's gardener, when he is roused! Begonias, I
fancy, are his special passion. Miss Nan, you will have to be friends
with me whether you will or not, for our natures are so different that
we could be of infinite service to each other. You could inspire me
with your own enthusiasm, and I, in my turn, could curb and restrain
you."

"But, dear me," cried Nan, "I don't want to be curbed!" Then she looked
at the begonias, and her face fell. "But I suppose, like all
disagreeable things, it would be good for me; so I'll be friends, if you
like, Mr Vanburgh, and take my share of the discipline."

"I feel much honoured. It shall be my endeavour to be as little
disagreeable as I can," said Gervase Vanburgh, with his courtly bow; and
thus were the deeds signed in a friendship destined to have far-reaching
consequences.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

LILIAS INTERFERES.

Nan's compact of friendship with Gervase Vanburgh was announced to the
family, and received with acclamation by the younger sisters, and with
shocked disapproval by grown-up Lilias.

"Most improper!" she pronounced it. "You ought to remember, Nan, that
you are no longer a child in the schoolroom, and that such an intimacy
with a man of Mr Vanburgh's age is simply another word for flirtation.
It is all very well to call it friendship, but everybody knows perfectly
well what it means!"

She stopped short with an expressive wave of the hands, and Nan glared
at her with flashing eyes.

"If there is one thing more than another that I loathe--and detest--and
scorn--and despise," she replied, dropping out each word with vindictive
emphasis, "it is looking upon every man one meets in the light of a
possible husband, and taking for granted that you can't be civil to him
without making a fool of yourself! I don't know quite what you mean by
`flirting,'