eady
me. It is so hard to stand on one foot and wipe the other without
support. I was in danger of toppling over, and so gave it up.'

'Merciful stars, what an opportunity!' thought the poor fellow while she
waited for him to offer help. But his lips remained closed, and she went
on with a pouting smile--

'You seem in such a hurry! Why are you in such a hurry? After all the
fine things you have said about--about caring so much for me, and all
that, you won't stop for anything!'

It was too much for John. 'Upon my heart and life, my dea--' he began.
Here Bob's letter crackled warningly in his waistcoat pocket as he laid
his hand asseveratingly upon his breast, and he became suddenly scaled up
to dumbness and gloom as before.

When they reached home Anne sank upon a stool outside the door, fatigued
with her excursion. Her first act was to try to pull off her shoe--it
was a difficult matter; but John stood beating with his switch the leaves
of the creeper on the wall.

'Mother--David--Molly, or somebody--do come and help me pull off these
dirty shoes!' she cried aloud at last. 'Nobody helps me in anything!'

'I am very sorry,' said John, coming towards her with incredible slowness
and an air of unutterable depression.

'O, I can do without _you_. David is best,' she returned, as the old man
approached and removed the obnoxious shoes in a trice.

Anne was amazed at this sudden change from devotion to crass
indifference. On entering her room she flew to the glass, almost
expecting to learn that some extraordinary change had come over her
pretty countenance, rendering her intolerable for evermore. But it was,
if anything, fresher than usual, on account of the exercise. 'Well!' she
said retrospectively. For the first time since their acqaintance she had
this week encouraged him; and for the first time he had shown that
encouragement was useless. 'But perhaps he does not clearly understand,'
she added serenely.

When he next came it was, to her surprise, to bring her newspapers, now
for some time discontinued. As soon as she saw them she said, 'I do not
care for newspapers.'

'The shipping news is very full and long to-day, though the print is
rather small.'

'I take no further interest in the shipping news,' she replied with cold
dignity.

She was sitting by the window, inside the table, and hence when, in spite
of her negations, he deliberately unfolded the paper and began to read
about the Roya