o good in telling her what Mrs. Garth had
said.

"It follows as a matter of course," he replied. "When you are
continually seeing a man who beats me in everything, and whom you set
up above everybody, I can have no fair chance."

"You are very ungrateful, Fred," said Mary. "I wish I had never told
Mr. Farebrother that I cared for you in the least."

"No, I am not ungrateful; I should be the happiest fellow in the world
if it were not for this. I told your father everything, and he was
very kind; he treated me as if I were his son. I could go at the work
with a will, writing and everything, if it were not for this."

"For this? for what?" said Mary, imagining now that something specific
must have been said or done.

"This dreadful certainty that I shall be bowled out by Farebrother."
Mary was appeased by her inclination to laugh.

"Fred," she said, peeping round to catch his eyes, which were sulkily
turned away from her, "you are too delightfully ridiculous. If you
were not such a charming simpleton, what a temptation this would be to
play the wicked coquette, and let you suppose that somebody besides you
has made love to me."

"Do you really like me best, Mary?" said Fred, turning eyes full of
affection on her, and trying to take her hand.

"I don't like you at all at this moment," said Mary, retreating, and
putting her hands behind her. "I only said that no mortal ever made
love to me besides you. And that is no argument that a very wise man
ever will," she ended, merrily.

"I wish you would tell me that you could not possibly ever think of
him," said Fred.

"Never dare to mention this any more to me, Fred," said Mary, getting
serious again. "I don't know whether it is more stupid or ungenerous
in you not to see that Mr. Farebrother has left us together on purpose
that we might speak freely. I am disappointed that you should be so
blind to his delicate feeling."

There was no time to say any more before Mr. Farebrother came back with
the engraving; and Fred had to return to the drawing-room still with a
jealous dread in his heart, but yet with comforting arguments from
Mary's words and manner. The result of the conversation was on the
whole more painful to Mary: inevitably her attention had taken a new
attitude, and she saw the possibility of new interpretations. She was
in a position in which she seemed to herself to be slighting Mr.
Farebrother, and this, in relation to a man who is much hono