nd,' he
said. 'About that harp thing, I mean. I did make it, certainly, but it
was my brother John who asked me to do it, just before he went away. John
is very musical, as you know, and he said it would interest you; but as
he didn't ask me to tell, I did not. Perhaps I ought to have, and not
have taken the credit to myself.'

'O, it is nothing!' said Anne quickly. 'It is a very incomplete
instrument after all, and it will be just as well for you to take it away
as you first proposed.'

He said that he would, but he forgot to do it that day; and the following
night there was a high wind, and the harp cried and moaned so movingly
that Anne, whose window was quite near, could hardly bear the sound with
its new associations. John Loveday was present to her mind all night as
an ill-used man; and yet she could not own that she had ill-used him.

The harp was removed next day. Bob, feeling that his credit for
originality was damaged in her eyes, by way of recovering it set himself
to paint the summer-house which Anne frequented, and when he came out he
assured her that it was quite his own idea.

'It wanted doing, certainly,' she said, in a neutral tone.

'It is just about troublesome.'

'Yes; you can't quite reach up. That's because you are not very tall; is
it not, Captain Loveday?'

'You never used to say things like that.'

'O, I don't mean that you are much less than tall! Shall I hold the
paint for you, to save your stepping down?'

'Thank you, if you would.'

She took the paint-pot, and stood looking at the brush as it moved up and
down in his hand.

'I hope I shall not sprinkle your fingers,' he observed as he dipped.

'O, that would not matter! You do it very well.'

'I am glad to hear that you think so.'

'But perhaps not quite so much art is demanded to paint a summer-house as
to paint a picture?'

Thinking that, as a painter's daughter, and a person of education
superior to his own, she spoke with a flavour of sarcasm, he felt humbled
and said--

'You did not use to talk like that to me.'

'I was perhaps too young then to take any pleasure in giving pain,' she
observed daringly.

'Does it give you pleasure?'

Anne nodded.

'I like to give pain to people who have given pain to me,' she said
smartly, without removing her eyes from the green liquid in her hand.

'I ask your pardon for that.'

'I didn't say I meant you--though I did mean you.'

Bob looked and looked at her sid