said Frances.

The young girl was standing in her white dress, with her guitar hung in
its usual attitude by her side. She scarcely ever went anywhere without
this instrument, and she was fond of striking up the sweetest, wildest
songs to its accompaniment at any moment.

Fluff, for all her extreme fairness and babyishness, had not a doll's
face. The charming eyes could show many emotions, and the curved lips
reveal many shades either of love or dislike. She had not a passionate
face; there were neither heights nor depths about little Fluff; but she
had a very warm heart, and was both truthful and fearless.

She had been waiting in a sheltered part of the garden for over an hour
for Arnold. He had promised to go down with her to the river--he was to
sketch, and she was to play. It was intensely hot, even in the shadiest
part of the squire's garden, but by the river there would be coolness
and a breeze. Fluff was sweet-tempered, but she did not like to wait an
hour for any man, and she could not help thinking it aggravating of
Arnold to go on pacing up and down in the hot sun by the squire's side.
What could the squire and Arnold have to say to each other? And why did
the taller and younger man rather stoop as he walked? And why was his
step so depressed, so lacking in energy that even Fluff, under her shady
tree in the distance, noticed it?

She was standing so when Frances came up to her; now and then her
fingers idly touched her guitar, her rosy lips pouted, and her glowing
dark-blue eyes were fixed reproachfully on Arnold's distant figure.

Frances looked pale and fagged; she was not in the becoming white dress
which she had worn during the first few days of Arnold's visit; she was
in gray, and the gray was not particularly fresh nor cool in texture.

"Fluff, I want to speak to you," she said.

And she laid her hand on the girl's shoulder--then her eyes followed
Fluff's; she saw Arnold, and her cheeks grew a little whiter than
before.

"Fluff misses him already," she whispered to her heart. "And he likes
her. They are always together. Yes, I see plainly that I sha'n't do
Philip any serious injury when I refuse him."

"What is it, Frances?" said Fluff, turning her rather aggrieved little
face full on the new-comer. "Do you want to say anything to me very
badly? I do call it a shame of Mr. Arnold; he and the squire have
chatted together in the South Walk for over an hour. It's just too bad,
I might have been