d 'unconsciousness' and 'lack of vanity,' and all the rest
of it. I have been feeling more and more what a vain, deceitful,
hypocritical little wretch I am ever since I knew you. I have been
expecting you to find me out every day, and I almost hoped you would."

"What _do_ you mean, Miss Grey?" asked the Jook in tones of utter
amazement, as well he might.

"Oh dear! how shall I tell you?" sighed poor Kitty; and I could _feel_ her
blushes burning through her words. Then, with a sudden rush: "Can't you
see? I feel as if I had _stolen_ your love, for it was all gained under
false pretences. You never would have cared for me if you had known what a
miserable hypocrite I really was. Why, that very first day I wasn't afraid
of the cow--she didn't even look at me--but I saw you coming,
and--and--Helen wouldn't introduce you to me--and it just struck me it
would be a good chance, and so I rushed up to you and--Oh! what will you
think of me?"

"Think?" said the Jook: "why, I think that while ninety-nine women out of
a hundred are hypocrites, not one in a thousand has the courage to atone
for it by an avowal like yours. Not that it was exactly hypocrisy, either."

The poor blundering Jook! Always saying the most maddening things under the
firm conviction that it was the most delicate compliment.

Kitty was too much in earnest to mind it now, though. "Do you know," she
went on, "that from the very first day I came into the house I was
determined to captivate you?--that every word and every look was directed
to that end? I have been nothing but an actress all through. I have done it
before, hundreds and hundreds of times, but I never felt the shame of it
until now--because--because--"

"Because you never loved any one before? Is that it, Kitty?" said the Jook
tenderly.

"Oh, I don't know," said Kitty desperately. "How can I tell? But it's all
Helen's fault. If she had introduced you to me in a rational way, I should
never have gone on so. But she wouldn't, and I was piqued--"

"I must exonerate Miss Helen," interrupted the Jook. "She wanted to
introduce me, and I declined. I am sure I don't know why--English reserve,
I suppose. I had not seen you then, you know, and some of the people here
are such a queer lot that I rather dreaded new acquaintances."

"Not Helen's fault?" wailed Kitty. "Oh, this is stolen--oh, poor Helen!"

Naturally, the Jook was utterly bewildered, but as for me I sprang up into
a sitting posture, for