stakably
evident to the most casual eye; and, from the anxious care with which
Barbara looks _away from me_, when she addresses me, I can perceive that
she has observed it, as, indeed, how could she fail to do? If Tou Tou
were here, she would overwhelm me with officious questions--would stare
me crazy, but Barbara averts her eyes, and asks nothing.

We have been sitting in perfect silence for a long while; no noise but
the click of Barbara's knitting-pins, the low flutter of the fire-flame,
and the sort of suppressed choked _inward_ bark, with which Vick attacks
a phantom tomcat in her dreams.

Suddenly I speak.

"Barbara!" say I, with a hard, forced laugh, "I am going to ask you a
silly question: tell me, did you ever observe--has it ever struck you
that there was something rather--rather _offensive_ in my manner to
men?"

Her knitting drops into her lap. Her blue eyes open wide, like
dog-violets in the sun; she is _obliged_ to look at me now.

"_Offensive!_" she echoes, with an accent of the most utter surprise and
mystification. "Good Heavens, no! What has come to the child?
Oh!"--(with a little look of dawning intelligence)--"I see! You mean, do
not you smite them too much? Are not you sometimes a little too _hard_
upon them?"

"No," say I, gravely; "I did not mean that."

She looks at me for explanation, but I can give none. More silence.

Vick is either in hot pursuit of, or hot flight from, the tomcat; all
her four legs are quivering and kicking in a mimic gallop.

"Do you remember," say I, again speaking, and again prefacing my words
by an uneasy laugh, "how the boys at home used always to laugh at me,
because I never knew how to flirt, nor had any pretty ways? Do you
think"--(speaking slowly and hesitatingly)--"that boys--one's brothers,
I mean--would be good judges of that sort of thing?"

"As good as any one else's brothers, I suppose," she says, with a low
laugh, but still looking puzzled; "but why do you ask?"

"I do not know," reply I, trying to speak carelessly; "it came into my
head."

"Has any one been accusing you?" she says, a little curiously, "But no!
who _could_? You have seen no one, not even--"

"No, no!" interrupt I, shrinking from the sound of the name that I know
is coming; "of course not; no one!"

The clock strikes eleven, and wakes Vick. Barbara rises, rolls up her
knitting, and, going over to the fireplace, stands with one white elbow
resting on the chimney-piece, and sle