duction of the two little boys, were
driving out together, there were questions about whether she saw much
of him.

'Oh, I don't know! He is the nicest, on the whole, of papa's friends;
he can talk of something besides'--Nuttie paused over her
'besides,'--'horseyness, and all that sort of thing--he is not so like
an old satyr as some of them are; and so he is a resource.'

'I see. And you meet him elsewhere, don't you, in general society?'

'I don't go out much now that Lady Kirkaldy is not in town; but he
always seems to turn up everywhere that one goes.'

'Ursula, I'm very glad of that tone of yours. I was afraid--'

'Afraid of what?' cried Nuttie in a defiant tone.

'That you liked him, and he is not really nice, Nuttie. Mark knows all
about him; and so did I when I lived with the Delmars.'

Nuttie laughed rather bitterly. 'Thank you, Annaple. As if I could
care for that man--or he for me, for that matter! I know but too
well,' she added gravely, 'that nobody nice is ever intimate at home.'

'I beg your pardon. I would not have worried you about it, only I
think you must take care, Nuttie, for Blanche mentioned it to us last
winter.'

'Blanche is an arrant gossip! If she saw a grandfather and great
grandmother gossiping she would say they were going to be married.'

'Yes, as Mark says, one always swallows Blanche with a qualification.'

'You may be quite sure, Annaple, that nothing like that will ever be
true about me! Why, what would ever become of my poor little Wyn if I
was so horrid as to want to go and marry?'

She said it with an ineffable tone of contempt, just like the original
Nuttie, who seemed to be recalled by association with Annaple.

That sojourn of Mark and his wife at Springfield House was a bright
spot in that summer. If it had been only that Annaple's presence gave
the free entree to such an island of old Micklethwayte, it would have
been a great pleasure to her; but there was besides the happiness of
confidence and unrestraint in their society, a restful enjoyment only
to be appreciated by living the guarded life of constraint that was
hers. She was so seldom thrown among people whom she could admire and
look up to. Annaple told her husband of Nuttie's vehement repudiation
of any intention of marriage. 'I am sure she meant it,' she observed,
'it was only a little too strong. I wonder if that poor youth who came
to her first ball, and helped to pick us out of the hole in