rst sight. I've
fallen in love with you already, Miss--Bessie's your name--eh?"

She backed away a little, and with a trembling laugh:

"You haven't seen my face yet."

He bent forward gallantly. "A little pale: it suits some. But you are a
fine figure of a girl, Miss Bessie."

She was all in a flutter. Nobody had ever said so much to her before.

His tone changed. "I am getting middling hungry, though. Had no
breakfast to-day. Couldn't you scare up some bread from that tea for me,
or--"

She was gone already. He had been on the point of asking her to let him
come inside. No matter. Anywhere would do. Devil of a fix! What would
his chum think?

"I didn't ask you as a beggar," he said, jestingly, taking a piece
of bread-and-butter from the plate she held before him. "I asked as a
friend. My dad is rich, you know."

"He starves himself for your sake."

"And I have starved for his whim," he said, taking up another piece.

"All he has in the world is for you," she pleaded.

"Yes, if I come here to sit on it like a dam' toad in a hole. Thank you;
and what about the shovel, eh? He always had a queer way of showing his
love."

"I could bring him round in a week," she suggested, timidly.

He was too hungry to answer her; and, holding the plate submissively to
his hand, she began to whisper up to him in a quick, panting voice.
He listened, amazed, eating slower and slower, till at last his jaws
stopped altogether. "That's his game, is it?" he said, in a rising tone
of scathing contempt. An ungovernable movement of his arm sent the plate
flying out of her fingers. He shot out a violent curse.

She shrank from him, putting her hand against the wall.

"No!" he raged. "He expects! Expects _me_--for his rotten money!...
Who wants his home? Mad--not he! Don't you think. He wants his own way.
He wanted to turn me into a miserable lawyer's clerk, and now he wants
to make of me a blamed tame rabbit in a cage. Of me! Of me!" His subdued
angry laugh frightened her now.

"The whole world ain't a bit too big for me to spread my elbows in, I
can tell you--what's your name--Bessie--let alone a dam' parlour in a
hutch. Marry! He wants me to marry and settle! And as likely as not he
has looked out the girl too--dash my soul! And do you know the Judy, may
I ask?"

She shook all over with noiseless dry sobs; but he was fuming and
fretting too much to notice her distress. He bit his thumb with rage at
the mere idea. A window r