er fall a prey to a mere passionless
fortune-hunter? A thousand times no! Better inflict a little pain now
rather than let this girl endure endless pain in the future.

With a shrinking at her heart, born of the fear that the word will be
very bitter to her guest, she says, "Yes;" very distinctly.

"Ha!" says Miss Maliphant, and that is all. Joyce, regarding her
anxiously, is as relieved as astonished to see no trace of grief or
chagrin upon her face. There is no change at all, indeed, except she
looks deeply reflective. Her mind seems to be traveling backward,
picking up loose threads of memory, no doubt, and joining them together.
A sense of intense comfort fills Joyce's soul. After all; the wound had
not gone deep; she had been right to speak.

"He is not worth thinking about," says she, tremulously, _apropos_ of
nothing, as it seems.

"No?" says Miss Maliphant; "then what were you crying about?"

"I hardly know. I felt nervous--and once I did like him--not very
much--but still I liked him--and he was a disappointment."

"Tell you what," says Miss Maliphant, "you've hit upon a big truth. He
is not worth thinking about. Once, perhaps, I, too, liked him, and I was
an idiot for my pains; but I shan't like him again in a hurry. I expect
I've got to let him know that, one way or another. And as for you----"

"I tell you I never liked him much," says Joyce, with a touch of
displeasure. "He was handsome, suave, agreeable--but----"

"He was, and is, a hypocrite!" interrupts Miss Maliphant, with truly
beautiful conciseness. She has never learned to mince matters. "And,
when all is told, perhaps nothing better than a fool! You are well out
of it, in my opinion."

"I don't think I had much to do with it," says Joyce, unable to refrain
from a smile. "I fancy my poor uncle was responsible for the honor done
me to-day." Then a sort of vague feeling that she is being ungenerous
distresses her. "Perhaps, after all, I misjudge him too far," she says.

"Could you?" with a bitter little laugh.

"I don't know," doubtfully. "One often forms an opinion of a person,
and, though the groundwork of it may be just, still one is too inclined
to build upon it and to rear stories upon it that get a little beyond
the actual truth when the structure is completed."

"Oh! I think it is he who tells all the stories," said Miss Maliphant,
who is singularly dull in little unnecessary ways, and has failed to
follow Joyce in her upstairs flig