is ever so much better than Dora and Tom Robinson. He was so easily
rebuffed, and she was so reluctant to rebuff him. But here is Annie
like one of the furies, and Harry Ironside is silly enough to mind her,
so that he can hardly open his mouth before her, and looks as if he had
lost his wits. Before Annie! What is our Annie, I should like to know,
that she should daunt a clever, high-spirited young fellow such as he
is? What strange glamour has she thrown over him? But he has plenty of
mettle and determination for all that, and she will no more manage by
her tirades to stop him from coming after her and laying siege to her
ladyship, than she can keep the sun from shining or the rain from
falling. For that matter, I believe the poor fellow cannot help himself;
it is the case of the moth and the candle."

"But what is it all about?" demanded May, in an utter confusion of
ideas. "She speaks as if she hated him, and I thought he had come to
Redcross to trace the course of the Russian fever."

"To trace the course of his own fortunes. I beg your pardon, my dear,
but you might have known enough of human nature to guess that there was
a private personal motive at the bottom of his philanthropy."

"Then it is the worse for him and a great pity," said May, with the
sweet seriousness into which one phase of her childishness was passing.
"I wonder you can laugh, Rose. I am always affronted when I remember
how we laughed at Tom Robinson and poor Dora, making game of what was no
joke to them. And Dora was not half so much opposed to Tom as Annie is
to this unfortunate, nice, pleasant young doctor. I could find it in my
heart to be very sorry for him."

"Oh! you are a simpleton apart from Latin and Greek. Don't you see that
Annie's wrath is neither more nor less than fright? She is frightened
out of her senses at him, because she wants to keep her independence and
share our fortunes. As I do not remember to have seen her in such a
scare before, I should say that she is paying him a high compliment."

"I think it is rather a queer compliment," objected May in much
perplexity.

"'Though you should choose to dissemble your love,
Why need you kick me down-stairs?"

quoted Rose. "Oh! but the poet did not know the world, or pretended not
to know it. I assure you there are many wise men who would much rather
be kicked in this way than be civilly spoken to. Kate Ironside thought
fit to confide to me how much interested she