s. His looks _do_
promise everything; but O dear me! I should be sorry for any one that
was in love with him. Just imagine some girl meeting with such a man,
and taking a fancy to him! I suppose she never would quite believe but
that he must somehow be what she first thought him, and she would go
down to her grave believing that she had failed to understand him. What
a curious story it would make!"

"Then, why don't you write it, Kitty?" asked Mrs. Ellison. "No one could
do it better."

Kitty flushed quickly; then she smiled: "O, I don't think I could do it
at all. It wouldn't be a very easy story to work out. Perhaps he might
never do anything positively disagreeable enough to make anybody condemn
him. The only way you could show his character would be to have her do
and say hateful things to him, when she couldn't help it, and then
repent of it, while he was impassively perfect through everything. And
perhaps, after all, he might be regarded by some stupid people as the
injured one. Well, Mr. Arbuton has been very polite to us, I'm sure,
Fanny," she said after another pause, as she rose from her chair, "and
maybe I'm unjust to him. I beg his pardon of you; and I wish," she added
with a dull disappointment quite her own, and a pang of surprise at
words that seemed to utter themselves, "that he would go away."

"Why, Kitty, I'm shocked," said Mrs. Ellison, rising from her cushions.

"Yes; so am I, Fanny."

"Are you really tired of him, then?"

Kitty did not answer, but turned away her face a little, where she stood
beside the chair in which she had been sitting.

Mrs. Ellison put out her hand towards her. "Kitty, come here," she said
with imperious tenderness.

"No, I won't, Fanny," answered the young girl, in a trembling voice. She
raised the glove that she had been nervously swinging back and forth,
and bit hard upon the button of it. "I don't know whether I'm tired of
_him_,--though he isn't a person to rest one a great deal,--but I'm
tired of _it_. I'm perplexed and troubled the whole time, and I don't
see any end to it. Yes, I wish he would go away! Yes, he _is_ tiresome.
What is he staying here for? If he thinks himself so much better than
all of us, I wonder he troubles himself with our company. It's quite
time for him to go. No, Fanny, no," cried Kitty with a little broken
laugh, still rejecting the outstretched hand, "I'll be flat in private,
if you please." And dashing her hand across her eyes, she fl