ing, Frances? Could not I go with
you?"

"I wish you could, darling. I will tell you where I am going to-morrow
or next day. It is possible that I may not go, but it is almost certain
that I shall."

"Oh, I trust, I hope, I pray that you will not go."

"Don't do that, Fluff, for that, too, means a great trouble. Oh, yes, a
great trouble and desolation. Now, dear, I really must talk to you about
your own affairs. Leave me out of the question for a few moments, pet. I
must find out what you would like to do, and where you would like to go.
If I go away I shall have little or no time to make arrangements for
you, so I must speak to you now. Have you any friends who would take you
in until you would hear from your father, Fluff?"

"I have no special friends. There are the Harewoods, but they are silly
and flirty, and I don't care for them. They talk about dress--you should
hear how they go on--and they always repeat the silly things the men
they meet say to them. No, I won't go to the Harewoods. I think if I
must leave you, Frances, I had better go to my old school-mistress, Mrs.
Hopkins. She would be always glad to have me."

"That is a good thought, dear. I will write to her to-day just as a
precautionary measure. Ah, and here comes Philip. Philip, you have tried
the patience of this little girl very sadly."

In reply to Frances' speech Arnold slightly raised his hat; his face
looked drawn and worried; his eyes avoided Frances's, but turned with a
sense of refreshment to where Fluff stood looking cool and sweet, and
with a world of tender emotion on her sensitive little face.

"A thousand apologies," he said. "The squire kept me. Shall I carry your
guitar? No, I won't sketch, thanks; but if you will let me lie on my
back in the long grass by the river, and if you will sing me a song or
two, I shall be grateful ever after."

"Then I will write to Mrs. Hopkins, Fluff," said Frances. And as the two
got over a stile which led down a sloping meadow to the river, she
turned away. Arnold had neither looked at her nor addressed her again.

"My father has been saying something to him," thought Frances. And she
was right.

The squire was not a man to take up an idea lightly and then drop it. He
distinctly desired, come what might, that his daughter should not marry
Arnold; he came to the sage conclusion that the best way to prevent
such a catastrophe was to see Arnold safely married to some one else.
The squire had no p