run after, and are so clever, it is only natural
people should ask you into their houses, and
listen to you, whereas I am so foolish and so
little sought, I have only one person to look to.
I think of—"

The clouds on Fermor's face drifted away to
the right and left. The sun came out.

"You little absurd, ridiculous child," lie said,
with gracious vituperation. "So that is what
you are coming to. Because I go in and see a
dull old gentleman and a sick girl? Some of
the gossips have been entertaining you, eh?"

Violet hung down her head and said nothing.

"And you have been inflaming your little
jealous wits with their stories. Now, if I had
not luckily hit on the true state of things, we
should have had a combustion and explosion,
perhaps, and possibly," Fermor added, with a
climax, "a—a scene! As for having a special
Act of Parliament passed forbidding conversation
with ladies, or having a portable wall built
round me," continued Fermor, with great
humour, "and a sunk fence too wide to be jumped
across by ladies, these things, my dear Violet, are
not to be thought of in the nineteenth century.
Even if they were, they would be absurd."

Violet smiled, not through tears, but through
that little mist which was before her bright eyes.

"You know" she said, repeating her one idea,
"you are so superior to me, and know the world
so deeply, and so wonderfully. Still, as a favour
to me, if you only would—"

"Put up the six-foot wall?" said Fermor,
gaily, and with smiling encouragement. "Well,
it is up. Consider it up from this moment.
There!"

Overpowered by this generosity in impromptu
masonry, Violet humbled herself at her lord's
feet, and he raised her good naturedly.

"I shall take no more notice of them," he said.
"They are scarcely, in fact, in our sphere. You
well understand me, I fancy. A mere sick girl,
and I, out of charity, went round the hospital."

Thus, in general effusions, and with fireworks
and catherine-wheels flying round, the scene
closed in.

But that little heart was restless and troubled;
she was scarcely satisfied with the magnificent
explanation and the metaphors of the stone wall
and Acts of Parliament. Her instinct pierced
through all the disguises of "sick girl,"
"charity," "hospital," and the rest of it. If
a "sick girl," perhaps an interesting girl, and
charity was terribly akin to warmer feelings.
So, when her grand caliph was gone, she gave
way to the gloomiest despondency. She was
miserable, and there was no happiness on earth.

She knew Fermor was gone down to the
barracks "to be made a machine of," as he put it,
and she knew where Brown's-terrace was pretty
well. She presently got on her bonnet, the
bonnet with the red flower, and that seemed to
be made of spiders' webs, and with her little
face full of care, tripped away in a guilty sort
of fashion.

At Brown's-terrace she passed hurriedly before
the house, scarcely venturing to look at it;
then came back, reconnoitring it, softly like
a vidette. Gradually growing bolder, she
got courage for a steady look at the drawing-room
windows on each side, but saw nothing.
She went away, took a short walk, and came
back timorously, and then saw at one of the
windows a girl in an invalid's attitude, with a
book which she had been reading on her lap;
and this girl she saw in a second was not "a
sick girl" in the sense described, but a very
soft and interesting "delicate" creature.

The colour came to her cheeks again, as,
indeed, it did very often in the course of a day.
She was indeed plunged into misery. She was
thinking how it was now practically "all over,"
when she heard Young Brett's voice close beside
her, telling her that she would be sure to find
Fermor out now, but that if she had any
message he would run to the barracks for him.

He was at that moment full of the good
nature which is troublesome. Should he knock
at the door and see had he by any chance come
in? Very likely he would call at the Carlays,
next door, with whom he was "always in and
out." By the way, there was Miss Carlay in
the window, and it was a great pity she was so
delicate, was it not?

Violet, thinking she was now fairly embarked
in diplomacy, thought timorously how she would
examine this boyish witness. "But he never
sees these people—latterly, I mean," she said.
"I think he said he had given them up!"

Young Brett laughed with all the boisterous
scorn of superior knowledge. "No, no," he
said; "they are great friends. He is the best
fellow in the world. He gives up hours of his
time to sitting with that poor, pretty invalid.
There!" he said, triumphantly, "there's her
father!" And the grim figure stalked down the
steps, shut to what was part of his flesh and
blood that is—the iron gate—opened the gate
next door, and stalked up Fermor's steps.

In hopeless confusion she returned home, and
spent a troubled night. Poor soul! she was a
child, as Fermor had told her, and she tried hard
to comfort herself with his assurance about the
stone wall and the sunk fence. Though she
knew so little of the world, she had her hurricanes
in a Sèvres teacup, and a whole view of
the world in a stereoscope.

When Fermor reached home, he found a letter
and a piece of news waiting for him. The letter
was from Lady Laura Fermor, and his forehead
contracted as he read it. The piece of news
was that Mr. Carlay had called, and his brow
cleared again. "On his knees, it seems," he said,
gaily. Before he had been in ten minutes, the
human casting was stalking into his room once
more. Fermor fetched out his coat of supreme
indifference, and got into it as into a paletot.

"I was here before to-day," said the other.
"You were out, it seems."

Fermor shrugged his shoulders, and the
shoulders seemed to say in their own language,
"Was our master obliged to wait at home? or
to be always in on the chance of your honouring
us with a visit?"