lies in a tone of languid boredom.

During the fortnight which had elapsed since the date of her
misadventure on the river, Darsie had had frequent meetings with the
Percivals, and now felt on the footing of a friend rather than an
acquaintance. Concerning the girls, there was no question in her mind.
They were dears, not dears of the same calibre as Vie and plain Hannah,
dears of a less interesting, more conventional description, but dears
all the same, lively, good-tempered, and affectionate. The only brother
was a far more complex character, with regard to whom Darsie changed her
mind a dozen times a day. At one time he was all that was delightful,
full of natural, boy-like good-comradeships at another he was a bored
and supercilious dandy, looking down on schoolgirls from an intolerable
height of patronage, and evidently priding himself on a _blase_
indifference. The present moment showed him in the latter mood, and
Darsie's lips curled as she watched and listened, and in her eyes there
danced a mocking light. "Like a vain, affected girl!" was the mental
comment, as her thoughts flew back to Harry and Russell, uncompromising
and blunt, and to Dan Vernon in his shaggy strength. Even as the
thought passed through her mind Ralph turned, met the dancing light of
the grey eyes, and turned impatiently aside. He would not look at her,
but he could _feel_! Darsie watched with a malicious triumph the flush
creeping slowly over the smooth pale cheek, the hitch of the shoulders,
the restless movement of the hands which betrayed the hidden discomfort.
Presently some friends came forward to join the three ladies, when
Ralph immediately joined her with an invitation which sounded more like
a command--

"Come for a walk round the gardens!"

Darsie rose, nothing loath, conscious that she was about to be reproved,
and finding an agreeable sense of support in her lengthened skirts, and
the semblance of grown-up-ness which they imparted.

"What did you mean by staring at me like that?"

"Like which?"

"You know very well. You did it on purpose to annoy me, and make me
uncomfortable."

"Oh no, I didn't! I didn't do anything. It did itself. It was just
the outward and visible expression of my inward and invisible thoughts."

"Pretty middling disagreeable thoughts they must have been!"

"Humph! Not disagreeable exactly. Hardly strong enough for that. Just
amused!"

"Amused!" The flush deepened on the lad's che