are very much afraid, are not you, Frank?" said she, her face bright
with blushes, and her gray eyes smiling up at him. "I have a great idea
that if I could see that Harry Bish that Edward is always talking about, I
should be charmed. He must wear such beautiful waistcoats! Don't you think
I had better see him before our engagement is quite, quite final?"

But Frank would not smile. In fact, like all angry persons, he found fresh
matter for offence in every sentence. She did not consider the engagement
as quite final: thus he chose to understand her playful speech. He would
not answer. She spoke again:

"Dear Frank, you are not angry with me, are you? It is nonsense to think
that we are to go about the world, picking and choosing men and women as
if they were fruit and we were to gather the best; as if there was not
something in our own hearts which, if we listen to it conscientiously, will
tell us at once when we have met the one of all others. There now, am I
sensible? I suppose I am, for your grim features are relaxing into a smile.
That's right. But now listen to this. I think your father would come round
sooner, if he were not irritated every day by the knowledge of your visits
to me. If you went away, he would know that we should write to each other
yet he would forget the exact time when; but now he knows as well as I do
where you are when you are up here; and I fancy, from what Erminia says, it
makes him angry the whole time you are away."

Frank was silent. At last he said: "It is rather provoking to be obliged to
acknowledge that there is some truth in what you say. But even if I would,
I am not sure that I could go. My father does not speak to me about his
affairs, as he used to do; so I was rather surprised yesterday to hear him
say to Erminia (though I'm sure he meant the information for me), that he
had engaged an agent."

"Then there will be the less occasion for you to be at home. He won't want
your help in his accounts."

"I've given him little enough of that. I have long wanted him to have
somebody to look after his affairs. They are very complicated and he is
very careless. But I believe my signature will be wanted for some new
leases; at least he told me so."

"That need not take you long," said Maggie.

"Not the mere signing. But I want to know something more about the
property, and the proposed tenants. I believe this Mr. Henry that my father
has engaged, is a very hard sort of man. He is wh