brusquely--"naught never comes to harm."

"I wish you would have a shawl!" he says, as the evening wind comes,
with the tartness of autumn, to his face.

"Why do not you say, '_do, for my sake!_' as Algy once said to me, when
he mistook me in the dark for Mrs. Huntley?" reply I, with a mocking
laugh--"I am not sure that he did not add _darling_, but I will excuse
_that_!"

At the mention of Algy, a shade crosses his face, and his eye travels to
where, in the dignified solitude of a corner, my eldest brother is
sitting, biting his lips, and reading "Alice Through the Looking-glass,"
upside down.

"Foolish fellow! I wish he had not come!"

"I dare say he returns the compliment."

"I wish she would leave him alone!" he says, with an accent of
impatience, more to himself than to me.

"That is so likely," say I, quickly, "so much her way, is not it?"

I suppose that something in the exceeding bitterness of my tone strikes
him, for his eyes return from Algy to me.

"Nancy," he says, speaking with a sort of hesitating impulse, while a
dark flush crosses his face, "it has occurred to me once or twice--if
the idea had been less unspeakably absurd, it would have occurred to me
many times--that you are--are _jealous_ of Zephine and me!--YOU jealous
of ME!!"

There is such a depth of emphasis in his last words--such a wealth of
reproachful appeal in the eyes that are bent on me--that I can answer
nothing. I say neither yea nor nay. He has sat down on the couch beside
me.

"Tell me," he says, with low, quick excitement--"and for God's sake do
not grow scarlet, and turn your head aside as you mostly have done--did
you, or did you not know that--that _Musgrave_ was to be here to-day?"

"I _did not_--_indeed_ I _did not_!" I cry, with passionate eagerness;
thankful for once to be able to tell the truth; "we none of us did--not
even Barbara!"

He repeats my last words with a slightly sarcastic inflection, "_not
even Barbara_!"

A moment's pause.

"Why did you stop talking so suddenly, the moment that we interrupted
you?" he asks, with an abruptness that is almost harsh--"what were you
talking about?"

Phew! how hot it is! even though one is by the open window!--even
despite the cool moistness of the night wind.

"I was--I was--I was--congratulating him!" I say, doing the very thing
he has forbidden me, reddening and turning half away. He makes no
rejoinder; only I hear him sigh, and put his hand with a quick,
imp