nd took his hand, and kissed it. "I believe, if I was dying,
I should get well enough to go out with you! May I ask one little
favour? Do you mind if we don't go into the park today?"

"What has made you take a dislike to the park, Sally?"

"We might meet the beautiful young lady again," she answered, with her
head down. "I don't want to do that."

"We will go wherever you like, my child. You shall decide--not I."

She gathered up her dress from the floor, and hurried away to her
room--without looking back at him as usual when she opened the door.

Left by himself, Amelius sat at the table, mechanically turning over the
lesson-books. Sally had perplexed and even distressed him. His capacity
to preserve the harmless relations between them, depended mainly on the
mute appeal which the girl's ignorant innocence unconsciously addressed
to him. He felt this vaguely, without absolutely realizing it. By some
mysterious process of association which he was unable to follow, a
saying of the wise Elder Brother at Tadmor revived in his memory, while
he was trying to see his way through the difficulties that beset him.
"You will meet with many temptations, Amelius, when you leave our
Community," the old man had said at parting; "and most of them will come
to you through women. Be especially on your guard, my son, if you meet
with a woman who makes you feel truly sorry for her. She is on
the high-road to your passions, through the open door of your
sympathies--and all the more certainly if she is not aware of it
herself." Amelius felt the truth expressed in those words as he had
never felt it yet. There had been signs of a changing nature in Sally
for some little time past. But they had expressed themselves too
delicately to attract the attention of a man unprepared to be on the
watch. Only on that morning, they had been marked enough to force
themselves on his notice. Only on that morning, she had looked at him,
and spoken to him, as she had never looked or spoken before. He began
dimly to see the danger for both of them, to which he had shut his eyes
thus far. Where was the remedy? what ought he to do? Those questions
came naturally into his mind--and yet, his mind shrank from pursuing
them.

He got up impatiently, and busied himself in putting away the
lesson-books--a small duty hitherto always left to Toff.

It was useless; his mind dwelt persistently on Sally.

While he moved about the room, he still saw the look in her