I behave badly to you sometimes, it is because
I like to see if you mind my putting on little airs." That was candor.

"Well, Miss Kitten," said I, "you seem to know how to behave to young
men. I shall waste no more advice upon you."

And indeed she did not require it. She possessed in an exquisite degree
that gift of a delightful manner which generally comes through
inheritance, and cannot be perfectly gained by education. But my
suggestion regarding Thorpe bore fruit, and henceforward she was a
little more queenly and indifferent to him than ever, but never
displayed pique or asperity. Yet, however badly she treated him, he
quite deserved my title of a "tame cat:" he bore every reverse
patiently, and indeed at times displayed an absolute heroism in the face
of her indifference, going on in fluent recital of something he believed
would interest her while she utterly ignored him and his subject.
However, Thorpe was a good actor, and could play his part, and do it
well, in spite of his audience. I sometimes fancied that he was less
cheerful in those times than he seemed. In fact, I was ready to believe
that he was in reality, as he was in pretence, seeking to win Helen's
attention. Mr. Floyd looked at the matter in the same light.

"When he gets his conge he cannot complain of having received
encouragement," he said once or twice. "But he's no fool: can it be that
he is in love with Miss Lenox all the time, and that he tries to pique
her with a show of devotion to Helen?"

"Tony Thorpe will never be in love with a poor girl," I replied: "there
is nothing of that sort."

"I don't like Helen's having lovers," said Mr. Floyd. "When I married my
wife it was the pleasantest thing in the world to know that no other man
had ever breathed a word of love in her ears. 'The hand of little
employment hath the daintier sense.' The first sound of a lover's voice
brings a thrill to a girl's heart which she never knows but once. Miss
Lenox's perceptions in that way must be considerably toughened:
sole-leather is nothing in thickness compared to the epidermis of a
coquette's heart. Now, a man can love with delicacy, fervor, passion a
score of times. Women are frail creatures, are they not? I would like to
have my little girl give her heart once, receive unbounded love in
return, and never think of another man all her life. But Fate will
manage her affairs for her, as for us all."

I have said that my morning interviews with Miss L