sery that she hugged to her to keep it
warm. No one guessed her secret. She would have died rather than
allow even Aldith to get a suspicion of it, and accepted Andrew's
notes and smiles as if there was nothing more she wanted. But she
grew a trifle thin and large-eyed, and used to make copious notes
in her diary every night, and to write a truly appalling quantity
of verses, in which "heart" and "part," "grieve" and "leave,"
"weep" and "keep," and "sigh" and "die," were most often the
concluding words of the lines. She endured Andrew for several
reasons. He was Alan's brother for one thing, and was always
saying things about "old Al," and recording his prowess on the
football field; and Aldith might discover her secret if she gave
him the cold shoulder altogether. Besides this Andrew had the
longest eyelashes she had ever seen and she must have somebody
to say pretty things to her, even if it was not the person she
would have wished it to be.

One day things came to a crisis.

"No more trips on the dear old boat for a month," Aldith remarked,
from her corner of the cabin.

"This is appalling! Whatever do you mean, Miss MacCarthy?" James
Graham said, with exaggerated despair in his voice.

"Monsieur H---- has given the class a month's holiday. He is going
to Melbourne," Aldith returned, with a sigh.

Meg echoed it as in duty bound, and Andrew said fiercely that
hanging was too good for Monsieur H----. What did he mean by
such inhuman conduct, he should like to know; and however were Jim
and himself to maintain life in the meantime?

"It was James who speedily thought of a way out."

"Couldn't we go for a walk somewhere one evening--just we four?"
he said insinuatingly.

Aldith and Andrew thought the proposal a brilliant one; and though
Meg had at first shaken her head decidedly, in the end she was
prevailed upon, and promised faithfully to go.

They were to meet in a bush paddock adjoining the far one belonging
to Misrule, to walk for about an hour, returning by half-past seven,
before it grew dusk.

"I am going to ask you for something that day, Meg," Andrew whispered
just as they were parting. "I wonder if I shall get it."

Meg flushed in her nervous, conscious way, and wondered to herself
for a moment whether he intended to ask for a lock of her hair, a
thing Graham had already obtained from Aldith.

"What?" she said unwillingly.

"A kiss," he whispered.

The next minute the others had jo