st now; his little face
was shining like a star. Jack was chattering German to him, and he did
not understand a word, but that made no difference at all. And dear old
Jack! I believe he would have liked to kiss every stone in the garden
wall--there! he is calling me now! I promised to go for a walk when my
work was done. Are you sure you don't want anything, darling? absolutely
sure? Then good-bye for an hour!"

Hildegarde ran down, and found Jack pacing the veranda with yard-long
strides.

"Do you remember," he said, abruptly, "the first time I came here,
Hilda?"

"Of course I do!" said Hilda.

"How I fell over a chair, and then knocked down a hanging-basket? Hilda,
I do believe I should have made away with myself that night, if there
had been any weapons about. I was simply _full_ of rage and misery; I
hated everybody, myself included; and it did seem to me as if you might
let me alone, and not insist upon making me talk. I _couldn't_ talk, you
know."

"No, dear, you certainly could not; but you had to learn. And you are
not sorry now, Jack?"

"Sorry! well, rather not! Fancy, if I had stayed the hateful noodle that
I was that night! Fact is, I was brimful of my own self; that was the
trouble with me. Ah--who are all these people Uncle Tom has been telling
me about, next door, in the yellow house? I didn't bargain for
strangers, Hilda!" And my lord looked slightly injured.

"No, dear!" said Hildegarde. "Of course we ought to have thought of
that, and have prevented their coming here. We don't own the house, it
is true, but we might have turned the hose on them, or put rat-poison
about, or kept them off in some way."

"Oh, there you go!" cried Jack. "I say! I haven't been teased for two
years. I forget what it's like. But seriously, are they really nice? Do
you care for them? I--I really _am_ jealous, Hilda; you needn't laugh. I
thought I was going to have you all to myself, and now here are a lot of
people,--with unreasonable names, it seems to me,--and Uncle Tom says
they are your most intimate friends, and that he loves them all like
brothers."

"That was one of them you met last night," said Hildegarde, demurely.

"Oh, I say! I was going to ask you,--was it, though? of course; I didn't
notice her name much, but I remember now. Well, Hilda, she is a
musician, and of course I'm glad you have had such a friend as that. I
liked her face, too,--"

"You couldn't see her face!"

"Oh, I saw enough. I saw he