now
and then, what you cannot help showing me."

"Do you know that you are a very queer girl, Flora? Girls don't talk in
that way. Cecilia Osborne told me yesterday she thought you a very
curious girl indeed."

"I think my match might be found," said Flora, rather drily. "For one
thing, Cary, you must remember I have had nothing to do with other girls
except Annas Keith. Father and Angus have been my only companions; and
a girl who has neither mother nor sisters perhaps gets out of girls'
ways in some respects."

"But you are not the only `womankind,' as Father calls it, in the
house?" said I.

"Oh, no, there is Helen Raeburn," answered Flora: "but she is an old
woman, and she is not in my station. She would not teach me girls'
ways."

"Then who taught you manners, Flora?"

"Oh, Father saw to all that Helen could not," she said. "Helen could
teach me common decencies, of course; such as not to eat with my
fingers, and to shake hands, and so forth: but the little niceties of
ladylike behaviour that were beyond her--Father saw to those."

"Well, I think you have very pleasant manners, Flora. I only wish you
were not quite so grave."

"Thank you for the compliment, Miss Caroline Courtenay," said Flora,
dropping me a courtesy. "I would rather be too grave than too giddy."

That very afternoon, Cecilia Osborne asked me to walk up the Scar with
her. Somehow, when she asks you to do a thing, you feel as if you must
do it. I do not like that sort of enchanted feeling at all. However, I
fetched my hood and scarf, and away we went. We climbed up the Scar
without much talk--in fact, it is rather too steep for that: but when we
got to the top, Cecilia proposed to sit down on the bank. It was a
beautiful day, and quite warm for the time of the year. So down we sat,
and Cecilia pulled her sacque carefully on one side, that it should not
get spoiled--she was very charmingly dressed in a sacque of purple
lutestring, with such a pretty bonnet, of red velvet with a gold pompoon
in front--and then she began to talk, as if she had come for that, and I
believe she had. It was not long before I felt pretty sure that she had
brought me there to pump me.

"How long have you known Miss Drummond?" she began.

"Well, all my life, in a fashion," I said; "but it is nearly ten years
since we met."

"Ten years is a good deal of your life, is it not?" said Cecilia,
darting at me one of those side-glances from her tawny