ll."

"The whole thing is simply absurd," says the young man, taking now the
superior tone that is meant to crush the situation by holding it up to
ridicule. "You forget, perhaps, that we shall _have_ to meet sometimes.
I suppose the people down here give balls occasionally, and
tennis-parties, and that; and when I meet you at them, is it your wish
that I shall pretend never to have seen you before,--never to have known
you?"

"Yes," says Monica, with as much hesitation as lets him know how she
hates saying it. "When next you meet me, you are to look right over my
head, and pass on!"

"I couldn't do it," returns he, gazing at her steadily. "I couldn't
indeed. In fact, I feel it is just the last thing in the world I _could_
do."

"But you must," says Monica, imperiously, terrified to death as she
conjures up before her Aunt Priscilla's face as it will surely be if
this Philistine dares to address her: "I tell you my aunts would never
forgive me if they knew I had interchanged even one syllable with you.
From this moment you must forget me. There will really be no difficulty
about it, as our acquaintance is but of an hour's growth. You have seen
me for the first time to-day, and a chance meeting such as this is
easily driven from the mind."

"That is your opinion," says the young man, moodily. "It is not mine. I
dare say _you_ will find it very easy to forget. I shan't! And this
isn't the first time I have seen you, either. It seems to me as if years
have rolled by since last I looked upon your face. I was standing at the
gate of Coole, and saw you pass by, the day of your arrival in
Rossmoyne. So, you see, we are--in spite of you--almost old friends."

A bombshell flung at her feet could hardly have produced a greater
sensation than this apparently harmless speech. All at once there rushes
back upon her the recollection of that fatal day when she lay upon a
cart-load of hay and (according to Terence) kicked up her heels in the
exuberance of her joy. Oh, horror! she grows crimson from her soft
throat to her forehead! even her little ears do not escape the tint, but
turn a warm and guilty pink.

Never until this unlucky instant did it occur to her that this strange
young man must be the detested one who had stood in the gateway and
laughed at her undignified position and taken the clocks of her
stockings into careful remembrance.

The one absorbing thought that he was nephew to Aunt Priscilla's bugbear
has swall