nd imprints a lingering kiss upon it.

"Come away," says Dicky, touching Joyce's arm. "Run for your life, but
softly."

He and she have been standing in shadow, protected from the view of the
other two by a crimson rhododendron. Joyce starts as he touches her, as
one might who is roused from an ugly dream, and then follows him
swiftly, but lightly, back to the path they had forsaken.

She is trembling in a nervous fashion, that angers herself cruelly, and
something of her suppressed emotion becomes known to Mr. Browne.
Perhaps, being a friend of hers, it angers him, too.

"What strange freaks moonbeams play," says he, with a truly delightful
air of saying nothing in particular. "I could have sworn that just then
I saw Beauclerk kissing Miss Maliphant's hand."

No answer. There is a little silence, fraught with what angry grief who
can tell? Dicky, who is not all froth, and is capable of a liking here
and there, is conscious of, and is sorry for, the nervous tremor that
shakes the small hand he has drawn within his arm; but he is so far a
philosopher that he tells himself it is but a little thing in her life;
she can bear it; she will recover from it; "and in time forget that she
had been ever ill," says this good-natured skeptic to himself.

Joyce, who has evidently been struggling with herself, and has now
conquered her first feeling, turns to him.

"You should not condemn the moonbeams unheard," says she, bravely, with
the ghost of a little smile. "The evidence of two impartial witnesses
should count in their favor."

"But, my dear girl, consider," says Mr. Browne, mildly. "If it had been
anyone else's hand! I could then accuse the moonbeams of a secondary
offense, and say that their influence alone, which we all know has a
maddening effect, had driven him to so bold a deed. But not madness
itself could inspire me with a longing to kiss her hand."

"She is a very good girl, and I like her," says Joyce, with a suspicious
vehemence.

"So do I; so much, indeed, that I should shrink from calling her a good
girl. It is very damnatory, you know. You could hardly say anything more
prejudicial. It at once precludes the idea of her having any such minor
virtues as grace, beauty, wit, etc. Well, granted she is 'a good girl,'
that doesn't give her pretty hands, does it? As a rule, I think that all
good girls have gigantic points. I don't think I would care to kiss Miss
Maliphant's hands, even if she would let me."