fact you don't think a girl ought to be allowed to spend her
money without some wise person of the superior sex to guide her hand?
Thank you very much, Mr. Heron, but I think I may have my own way in
this at least. I have often told you that I left Keeton because I could
not stand the control of wiser and better persons than myself. I am not
at all a good girl, Mr. Heron; I never said I was. The counsels of the
wise are sadly thrown away on me, I fear."

She spoke in a hard and ungenial tone, which he had not heard her use
before. He could not help looking at her with an expression of wonder.
She saw the expression and understood it.

"You are shocked at my want of sweet, feminine docility? I ought not to
have any ideas of my own, I suppose?"

"No, I am not shocked, and I am not at all such a ridiculous person as
you would seem to suppose, and I have none of the ideas you set down to
me; but you don't seem quite like yourself, and you speak as if you
were offended with me for something."

"Offended? Oh, no. How could I possibly be offended? I am very much
obliged, on the contrary, for the trouble you take for one who seems to
you quite unable to take care of herself."

Victor did not like her tone. There was something aggressive in it. He
was not experienced enough in the ways of society to cry content to
that which grieved his heart, and his thoughts therefore showed
themselves pretty clearly in his face.

"I don't like Blanchet's taking all this money," he said, after a
moment of silence. "I don't think a man ought to take such a helping
hand as that from--well, from----"

"From a woman, you were going to say? Why not from a woman, Mr. Heron?
Are we never to do a kind thing, we unfortunate creatures, because we
are women and are young?"

"No, I don't say that; but there are things it may become a woman to
do, and which it doesn't quite so well become a man to profit by. I
don't think Blanchet----"

"Mr. Blanchet seems to have a higher idea of what a woman's friendship
may be than you have, Mr. Heron. He does not see any degradation in
allowing a woman to hold him out a helping hand when he wants one. I
like his ideas better than yours. You say you would have done this
little service for him if you had been allowed. Why should there be any
greater degradation to him in having it done by me? At all events you
can't wonder if I don't see it all at once."

"Of course if you are satisfied and pleased, there is