Of course she can't understand ten words of it,
but papa will have it. She's to do as she likes.
I think it's a mistake myself, it makes her so
quiet and solemn, always poring over books she
can't understand. Not like a child."

But I couldn't speak against Conny, whose
warm little heart was even now working under
her pinafore for imaginary woes, so I took a
safe refuge in silence.

"Can I do anything?" asked Conny, reluctant
to go, feeling as if in some inexplicable
way she was the sole supporter of life in my
frame, that with her absence I should droop and
fall; "shall I run and fetch some sal volatile, or
some steel wine?"

Conny's sister took sal volatile; but Conny
herself took steel wine, and believed in its
efficacy.

"No, no, Conny," said her sister, with a
fuller faith in her own powers of healing as
compared with steel wine, "Mr. Stevens is all right
now; he will do very well till papa comes in."

"I'll come and tell you the very moment he
does" declared Conny at the door; and having
administered this consolation, she departed,
hopping on one foot solemnly down-stairs.
Conny was disposed of. Mr. Flutters was from
home. Delicious and rare combination of
circumstances, for I had a bone to pick with
Madeleine. A bone that could by no possibility have
been picked before Conny, whose well-balanced
mind thought lightly of sentiment, regarded all
love-making as beneath her notice, and brought
Mill to bear upon every occasion.

This was the bone:

Madeleine, the queen of coquettes, engaged
to me, was yet, I feared, encouraging another
man of the name of Prior: a man from our
club, well dressed, good-looking, if not intellectual-
looking, of gentlemanly manners, but
inordinately conceited, and a confirmed flirt.
There was a pleasant character to have about
a house! A house, too, where the father was
easily pleased, easily satisfied, fond of society,
and ready to have any number of gentlemanly
fools about him; where the lady of the house
was a mere girl, attractive, charming, fascinating,
intensely lovable, but a coquette; where the
youngest daughter alone absorbed the sense.

"Madeleine," I said, gracefully blurting at
once into the subject the moment we were left
alone: "I find you have got to know Prior
during my absence from town."

No jealousy, I flattered myself, in my tone;
no discontent that it should be so.

"Yes," said Madeleine, taking up a pinafore
of Conny's, and settling down to work like a
staid little woman to whom coquetry was
unknown.

"You won't think me a bore, Madeleine, or
that I wish in any way to interfere with your
choice of friends, but—don't you find Prior an
insufferable coxcomb?''

"No," said Madeleine, intensely interested
in the formation of button-holes: "I don't
know that I do. Is not he generally liked,
then? Papa thinks him so very agreeable."

"Since you ask me, Madeleine," I said;
"and, mind, it is a thing I should never have
mentioned of my own accord; I may tell you
that, so far from being generally liked, to know
that he was intimate at a house would be quite
enough to prevent many men from visiting at it."

"Fancy!" said Madeleine, holding up the
pinafore to be admired.

"I among them," I went on.

"No?" said Madeleine, quite unmoved by
the assertion.

It was becoming evident that my challenge
would not be accepted, and that Madeleine
declined to show fight.

So, as after war the next best thing is
peace: "Perhaps he does not come here often,
after all," I said; "I should think, indeed, you
would not allow yourself to be bored by him
frequently."

"Oh, I don't know," said Madeleine; "I
think I am very often bored, one way and
another; it doesn't so much matter by whom,
you know."

Whereby it will be seen, not only that
Madeleine's views were liberal in the extreme,
but that she understood to a nicety the art of
evading delicate questions, and driving her
lovers to desperation.

Jack Stevens was the most easy-going fellow
in existence, but it was possible to drive him too
far. Miss Flutters was relying too much on his
sweetness of temper. He had now reached
his limit. The lion within his British breast
was beginning to require attention.

I put a direct question to her, and waited for
an answer.

"Madeleine," I said, "how often has Mr.
Prior been here during my absence?"

"I haven't an idea," said Madeleine,
slipping at once into feminine resources and
accusing her memory. "Conny may recollect,
perhaps; but it doesn't matter, does it?"

Another feminine resource. Madeleine
abandoned her pedestal of indifference when she
saw I was really angry, and descended to
coaxing.

"What can it matter? You're not going to
pretend you're jealous of Mr. Prior, Jack?"

The "Jack" did it. I was her devoted slave,
not in the least jealous, and full of wonder at
my own suspicions.

"Well, now," said Madeleine, when the
pinafore had been duly admired, and small pieces
of my heart had been sewn on to it in a Greek
pattern with braid, and we had both approved
of the effect: "I will be candid with you; you
shall never say I don't tell you everything.
Mr. Prior has been here a good deal."

Madeleine's candour always gave me palpitations
of the heart; I never knew what was
coming next. However, I gulped down this first
edition, with the conviction that it would
disagree with me when I came to digest it, happily
smiling.

"You won't make me jealous now,
Madeleine," I said, kissing her; and the pinafore
fell from her lap.