I tell you a secret?"

"Yes," said Anne. She was human, and she was feminine.

"Then--Virginia Carvel is in love with him."

"With Mr. Brice!" cried astonished Anne. "She hates him!"

"She thinks she hates him," said Miss Russell, calmly.

Anne looked up at her companion admiringly. Her two heroines were Puss
and Virginia. Both had the same kind of daring, but in Puss the trait
had developed into a somewhat disagreeable outspokenness which made many
people dislike her. Her judgments were usually well founded, and her
prophecies had so often come to pass that Anne often believed in them
for no other reason.

"How do you know?" said Anne, incredulously.

"Do you remember that September, a year ago, when we were all out at
Glencoe, and Judge Whipple was ill, and Virginia sent us all away and
nursed him herself?"

"Yes," said Anne.

"And did you know that Mr. Brice had gone out, with letters, when the
Judge was better?"

"Yes," said Anne, breathless.

"It was a Saturday afternoon that he left, although they had begged him
to stay over Sunday. Virginia had written for me to come back, and I
arrived in the evening. I asked Easter where Jinny was, and I found
her--"

"You found her--?" said Anne.

Sitting alone in the summer-house over the river. Easter said she
had been there for two hours. And I have never known Jinny to be such
miserable company as she was that night.

"Did she mention Stephen?" asked Anne.

"No."

"But you did," said Anne, with conviction.

Miss Russell's reply was not as direct as usual.

"You know Virginia never confides unless she wants to," she said.

Anne considered.

"Virginia has scarcely seen him since then," she said. "You know that
I was her room-mate at Monticello last year, and I think I should have
discovered it."

"Did she speak of him?" demanded Miss Russell.

"Only when the subject was mentioned. I heard her repeat once what Judge
Whipple told her father of him; that he had a fine legal mind. He was
often in my letters from home, because they have taken Pa's house next
door, and because Pa likes them. I used to read those letters to Jinny,"
said Anne, "but she never expressed any desire to hear them."

"I, too, used to write Jinny about him," confessed Puss.

"Did she answer your letter?"

"No," replied Miss Puss,--"but that was just before the holidays, you
remember. And then the Colonel hurried her off to see her Pennsylvania
relatives, and I believe they