"If my father is uneasy about me," Melissa said, "he can tell me so."

Come, my dear girl," Miss Rowan said, "you might be more friendly with me. I believe they say here that you are sick, but I do not think so. I mean, I don't think you are sick in any way that a doctor could cure. I think you are out of spirits. I think something has gone wrong with you. Perhaps something has disappointed you; and surely these are things that one girl might well talk to another girl about. We are friends, are we not?"

"I suppose you mean it well," Melissa answered; "I dare say you do; you are just the sort of girl who means everything well. Everybody says you do everything well; but I do not. I seldom mean things well, and I don't think I am at all inclined to be a friend of yours."

"Yet I want to win your friendship very much," said Geraldine ; "and I think I could deserve it. You have always shown yourself cold and unfriendly to me, but I don't mind that; I don't care for misunderstandings of that kind, and I don't a bit mind being met with an ungenial answer. I don't care about personal dignity. I want to be your friend."

"We can never be friends," said Melissa, getting up from her chair; "I hate you, and there is an end of it."

Geraldine was certainly somewhat shaken from her composure by this blunt declaration. To be told that one is actually hated, and told this by a little girl whose flashing eyes and trembling lips show that she means exactly all that she says, and at the same time not to have the least idea of anything which could give cause for such a feeling of detestation-this would be enough to disturb the nerves of even a philosopher. Geraldine was not a philosopher, but only a bright, good-hearted girl, who thought she saw a way of rendering a service, and was determined to go on if she could. She recovered her composure after a moment.

"Why do you hate me, Miss Aquitaine? I always liked you, and I am sure I never did anything that could make you feel so bitterly against me."

"I hate you all the same," said Melissa. She seemed to find a certain sense of relief in the declaration.

"But won't you tell me why? There may be some mistake. There must be. You have fancied I said or did something which I did not say or do. I am not at all a good hater myself; but if I did hate any one, I am sure I should tell the reason."

Melissa turned away and seated herself again in her chair. It was a great luxurious armchair, large enough to hold the portly frame

of some old-fashioned grandfather, or to embrace all the ample draperies of an eighteenth-century belle. Melissa curled herself up in it, and looked with her beaming eyes, her pretty face, and her pouting, impatient gestures, like some beautiful but dangerous little animal-a wild cat perhaps, or a snake, coiled up, and only waiting for a spring on some enemy.

Geraldine went over and knelt by the side of the chair, leant her head against it, and took Melissa's reluctant hand and held it firmly, as indeed she had strength enough to do; and then said, in the soothing tone one uses with a sick child, "You must tell me why you don't like me. I will not let you go until you explain it all. I am quite determined there shall be no unkindness between you and me if I can possibly prevent it. You know how much I like your

father, and I think he likes me."

"Of course he does," Melissa said; "everybody likes you except myself, and that's just it: everybody likes you; the people I like best in the world like you better than they like me."

"What people that you like best in the world," Geraldine asked, "like me better than they like you? Your father is intensely fond of you. I never saw any one more fond of a girl; and your mother, and everybody I know. How could they care for me in that way? I am only a girl to whom they are friendly, and whom they saw for the first time a few weeks ago, and soon won't see any more. How can you grudge me their passing kindness ? "

"No, it is not that," said Melissa; " it is not for my father. It is for-for everybody."

And Melissa burst into a passion of tears.

do to soothe her? for aught she knew, any stranger's ear?

Geraldine was touched to the heart by this sudden and unexpected outbreak. Now she felt sure indeed that poor Melissa's trouble was of the spirit and not of the body; but what could she How could she ask her for a confidence which, might concern some family tale not to be told to Melissa's own words showed that it had something to do with herself. Could it be that Melissa was jealous of the friendship which the Marions, father and daughter, showed to Geraldine? This seemed hardly possible; and yet, what else was there? Meantime, she found nothing better to do than to put her arm, with gentle resoluteness, round Melissa's neck and draw the girl towards her, and quietly press her little nervous hand in token of friendship and sympathy. Melissa at all events made no resistance now. Geraldine began to hope that she would soon return the pressure of sympathy.

A knock at the door made the girls start.

card for Miss Aquitaine.

A servant brought a

"Do please read the name; can't you read the name ?" Melissa asked in a tone of petulance.

Geraldine took the card.

"Clement Hope," she said.

"Oh, I can't see him; I won't see him. Pray send him away. Tell him to call again to-morrow; next week; next year."

"Who is he? A friend of
A friend of your father?"

"Oh, yes ;-wait outside, Jane; I'll call you in a moment. Oh, yes. My father delights in him; adores him; my father likes everybody. He is a dreadful man—not my father, but Clement Hope; a dreadful boy; a silly, sickening goose. He takes it into his ridiculous head, I believe, to fall in love with me—at least, I believe he does-and I hate him."

"You seem to hate us all, dear, don't you?" Geraldine said with a smile.

Melissa positively smiled in return. The very absurdity which she saw in the visit of her hapless lover seemed to rouse her into better spirits.

"I don't think I hate you now so much as I did; and, anyhow, I know you are just the sort of good girl to get me out of this scrape. How could I go and see him? Look at my eyes; look at my cheeks; how could I see any one? Will you see him, Miss Rowan ? I'll call you Geraldine if you will go and see him and send him away. Tell him to call to-morrow; papa wouldn't like it if we simply turned him away. Say I'm not well, and I'm not well; get rid of him for to-day. I needn't ask you to be kind to him, for you are kind to every one; it's your way; you like it; I don't. But he's a nice boy, people say, if he were not such a fool; and I suppose, after all, he isn't much more of a fool than other creatures."

"I don't see any particular evidence of folly in what you say of him," Geraldine said with a kindly smile. "I am not at all surprised; I can imagine a very wise boy falling in love with you."

"Can you, really? That's very nice of you to say, anyhow. But he is such a nuisance all the same, and I won't have it," Melissa declared with renewed energy.

"I'll go and see him with pleasure," Miss Rowan said. "When may he come?" For she fancied that, somehow, Melissa did not really want to have him dismissed once for all.

"I would much rather he never came, but papa wouldn't stand that, I am afraid, even from me. Let him come to-morrow at five. There will be other people here then, and he can't talk to me. He

can talk to you. I dare say you will discover all sorts of great and good qualities in him. I declare I think he is just such another good person as you are-good-natured and sweet; and not malicious and bad-tempered, and all that, like some who shall be nameless."

Miss Rowan went at once to see the fond youth whom Melissa would not favour. Clement turned round with deepened colour and sparkling eyes when he heard the rustle of a woman's dress. Even Miss Rowan, for all her short sight, could not fail to see the shade of disappointment which came over his face as he looked upon a strange young woman and not Melissa. Geraldine's heart was touched by his expression. He looked very handsome and winning, she thought, and worthy of all compassion. It came over her mind that if she could have a brother, she could wish to have one like him.

"Miss Aquitaine begs you will excuse her," she said; "she is not quite well to-day, and cannot see any one. But she hopes you will call to-morrow about five."

"Miss Marion, I presume?" Clement said.

66

No, not Miss Marion; Miss Rowan, a friend of Captain Marion's and of Miss Aquitaine, too."

"She will see me to-morrow?" Clement asked.

"She will see you to-morrow; yes, certainly. She is not seriously unwell, but she is not well enough to see any one to-day. But she will see you to-morrow; I can promise you that."

She smiled, and held out her hand to him as he was taking his leave. Their eyes met; and Clement knew, both by her look and by the touch of her hand, that she somehow had his secret and felt sympathy with him.

CHAPTER IX.

ON TOWER HILL.

CLEMENT HOPE had come apparently on a fool's errand. From the moment of his leaving Mr. Aquitaine the day before, he had been filled with a wild desire to take the father at his word and go straight away and propose for the daughter. He could not possibly have explained why this insane impulse took possession of him; but it seized him in a moment, and could not be shaken off.

"Anyhow, it will end the matter," he thought, and he felt a sort of wild and bitter desire that his repulse might be all as painful as Mr. Aquitaine had led him to expect. Let the knife be applied to

the diseased part of his frame; let the cautery burn out the idle passion which consumed him. The sooner the better. So he paid his visit, and only saw Geraldine. Next day he came again, promptly at five, and sent up his card to Miss Aquitaine.

He was shown into a waiting-room, and he remained there what seemed to him an unending time. His pulses throbbed, and there was a singing in his ears, and he saw objects flickering before him. He sat down; he stood up; he tried to walk up and down the room. His agony was intense. A door opened at last, and a servant came and told him Miss Aquitaine wished him to come upstairs. He followed, feeling more and more alarmed and confused as he approached nearer to the sacred presence.

Clement had expected anything rather than the kind of anticlimax which awaited him. He had made up his mind that somehow he was to be alone with Miss Aquitaine, and now he was shown into a room in which his uncertain eyes could only at first make out that there were several persons. The room was dark with curtains and draperies, and closed jalousies, and lowered blinds, to keep out the rays of the sun; and Clement could for a while hardly discover whether its occupants were people he knew or not. He stood hesitating on the threshold, and apparently looking for Miss Aquitaine, who did not seem in the least degree concerned to relieve his anxiety. His card had been just the card of the ordinary visitor, and it contained certainly no mysterious impress about it to forebode of a wild young lover and an absurd proposal; and yet poor Clement had, in a vague way, taken it for granted that if he was to be seen at all by Miss Aquitaine, he was to be seen alone, and to have an opportunity of making his declaration and receiving sentence of banishment. Now he came into an ordinary drawing-room, with four or five persons, no doubt of the most commonplace kind, shutting off his cold-hearted true-love from his sight. He advanced into the room, however, as composedly as he could, and he actually succeeded in seeing Miss Aquitaine. She was seated on an ottoman, her profile turned to him; she was talking to a lady, and apparently not thinking about him in the least. He had to go up and call her attention, in the most unheroic and commonplace manner, with the vapid words, "How do you do, Miss Aquitaine ?"

The moment he had said these words he felt that a declaration of love would, under any circumstances, be impossible for that time.

Miss Aquitaine looked round very composedly, and answered his question by putting the same question to him, with apparently little interest in any answer.