il was
too transparent and showed the displeasure with palpable plainness.

Leam looked at her in a half-surprised way. Jealousy was a passion
of which she was wholly ignorant, and she did not understand the
key-note. She knew nothing of the unspoken affair between Edgar and
the rector's daughter, and could not read between the lines. Why was
Adelaide cross because she had been a long time upon the ice? Did it
hurt her? They had not been near her--not interfered with her in any
way: why should she be vexed that they, Major Harrowby and herself,
had been enjoying themselves? So she thought, gazing at Adelaide with
the serious, searching look which always irritated that young lady,
and at this moment almost unbearably.

"I wonder they did not teach you at school that it was rude to stare
as you do, Leam," she cried with impolitic haste and bitterness. "What
are you looking at? Am I changing into a monster, or what?"

"I am looking at you because you are so cross about nothing," answered
Leam gravely. "What does it matter to any one if I have been on the
ice long or no? Why should you be angry?" "Angry!" said Adelaide with
supreme disdain. "I am not sufficiently interested in what you do,
Leam, to be angry or cross, as you call it. I confess I do not like
affectation: that is all."

"Neither do I like affectation," returned Leam. "People should say
what they feel."

"Indeed! That might not always be agreeable," said Adelaide with her
most sarcastic air. "Perhaps it is as well that the laws of politeness
keep one's mouth shut at times, and that we do not say what we feel."

"It would be better," insisted Leam.

"I wonder if you would say so were I to tell you what I thought of you
now?" Adelaide replied, measuring her scornfully with her eyes.

"Why should you not? What have I done to be ashamed of?" Leam asked.

"And you call yourself natural and not affected!" Adelaide cried,
turning away abruptly.--"How wrong," she said in a low voice to Edgar,
"turning the head of such a silly child as this!"

Edgar laughed. The vein of cruelty traversing his nature made him find
more amusement than chagrin in Adelaide's patent jealousy: he thought
she was silly, and he was rather amazed at her want of dignity; still,
it was amusing, and he enjoyed it as so much fun.

But when he laughed Leam's discomfiture was complete. "I am sorry I
came on the ice at all," she said with a mixture of her old pride and
new softness that ma