We each are young, we each have a heart,
Oh, why should we stand thus coldly apart?

he looked at Meg with such a lackadiasical expression that she laughed
outright and spoiled his song.

"How can you be so cruel to me?" he whispered, under cover of a lively
chorus. "You've kept close to that starched-up Englishwoman all day,
and now you snub me."

"I didn't mean to, but you looked so funny I really couldn't help it,"
replied Meg, passing over the first part of his reproach, for it was
quite true that she had shunned him, remembering the Moffat party and
the talk after it.

Ned was offended and turned to Sallie for consolation, saying to her
rather pettishly, "There isn't a bit of flirt in that girl, is there?"

"Not a particle, but she's a dear," returned Sallie, defending her
friend even while confessing her shortcomings.

"She's not a stricken deer anyway," said Ned, trying to be witty, and
succeeding as well as very young gentlemen usually do.

On the lawn where it had gathered, the little party separated with
cordial good nights and good-byes, for the Vaughns were going to Canada.
As the four sisters went home through the garden, Miss Kate looked
after them, saying, without the patronizing tone in her voice, "In
spite of their demonstrative manners, American girls are very nice when
one knows them."

"I quite agree with you," said Mr. Brooke.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CASTLES IN THE AIR

Laurie lay luxuriously swinging to and fro in his hammock one warm
September afternoon, wondering what his neighbors were about, but too
lazy to go and find out. He was in one of his moods, for the day had
been both unprofitable and unsatisfactory, and he was wishing he could
live it over again. The hot weather made him indolent, and he had
shirked his studies, tried Mr. Brooke's patience to the utmost,
displeased his grandfather by practicing half the afternoon, frightened
the maidservants half out of their wits by mischievously hinting that
one of his dogs was going mad, and, after high words with the stableman
about some fancied neglect of his horse, he had flung himself into his
hammock to fume over the stupidity of the world in general, till the
peace of the lovely day quieted him in spite of himself. Staring up
into the green gloom of the horse-chestnut trees above him, he dreamed
dreams of all sorts, and was just imagining himself tossing on the
ocean in a voyage round the world, when the sound of v