ght.

Jock encountered her the next day not so early, at the hour indeed when
the great people were at breakfast. He had been one of the first to
come downstairs, and he had not lingered at table as persons do who have
letters to read, and the newspapers, and all that is going on to talk
about. He met her coming from the park. She put out her hand when she
saw him as if to keep him off.

"If you wish to speak to me," she said, "you must turn back and walk
with me. I do not want any one to see me, and they will soon be coming
out from breakfast."

"Why don't you want any one to see you?" Jock said.

Bice had learned the secret of the Contessa's smile; but this which she
cast upon Jock had something mocking in it, and ended in a laugh. "Oh,
don't you know?" she said, "it is so silly to be a boy!"

"You are no older than I am," cried Jock, aggrieved; "and why don't you
come down to dinner as you used to do? I always liked you to come. It is
quite different when you are not there. If I had known I should not have
come home at all this Easter," Jock cried.

"Oh!" cried Bice, "that means that you like me, then?--and so does
Milady. If I should go away altogether----"

"You are not going away altogether? Why should you? There is no other
place you could be so well as here. The Contessa never says a word, but
laughs at a fellow, which is scarcely civil; and she has those men about
her that are--not----; but you----why should you go away?" cried Jock
with angry vehemence. He looked at her with eyes lowering fiercely under
his eyebrows; yet in his heart he was not angry but wretched, as if
something were rending him. Jock did not understand how he felt.

"Oh, now, you look at me as if you would eat me," said Bice, "as if I
were the little girl in the red hood and you the wolf---- But it is
silly, for how should I stay here when Milady is going away? We are all
going to London--and then! it will soon be decided, I suppose," said
Bice, herself feeling a little sad for the first time at the idea, "what
is going to be done with me."

"What is going to be done with you?" cried Jock hoarsely, for he was
angry and grieved, and full of impatient indignation, though he scarcely
knew why.

Bice turned upon him with that lingering smile which was like the
Contessa's. But, unlike the Contessa's, it ended as usual in a laugh.
She kissed her hand to him, and darted round the corner of the shrubbery
just as some one appeared from br