for, surely, a school-girl is so
interesting to no one else as herself, while she continually comes upon
all the fresh problems in her nature. So, when a day passed that I heard
no step in the hall, no cheery voice rousing the sleepy echoes with my
name, I was restless enough. Monday, Tuesday,--no Angus. I ought to have
thought whether or no he had found some of his fine friends, and if they
had no right to a fragment of his time; yet I was but a child. The third
day dawned and passed, and at length, sitting there among the evening
shadows in the long class-room, a little glumly, the doors clanged as
of old, a loud, laughing sentence was tossed up to the little gray
governess at the stair-head, then, three steps at a time, he had
mounted, and was within,--and what with my heart in my throat and its
bewildered beating, I could not utter a word. I but sprang to the window
and made as if I had been amusing myself there: I would have no Angus
Ingestre be thinking that he was all the world to me, and I nought to
him.

"A little ruffled," said he, at the saucy shake of my head. "Well, I
sha'n't tell you where I've been. I've the right to go into the country
for a day, have I not? What is it to Alice Strathsay how often I go to
Loch Rea? There's something Effie begged me to get you!" And he set down
a big box on the table.

So, then, he had been to see Effie. It was fair enough, and yet I
couldn't help the jealous pang. I wouldn't turn my head, though I did
wonder what was in the big box, but, holding out my hand backward, I
said,--

"Well, it's no odds where you've been, so long's you're here now. Come
and lean out of the window by me,--it's old times,--and see the grand
ladies roll by in their coaches, some to the opera, some to the balls."

"Why should I watch the grand ladies roll by, when there's one so very
much grander beside me," he said, laughing, but coming. And so we stood
together there and gazed down on the pretty sight, the beautiful women
borne along below in the light of the lamps, with their velvets, their
plumes, and their jewels, and we made little histories for them all, as
they passed.

"They are only the ugly sisters," said Angus, at length. "But here is
the true Cinderella waiting for her godmother. Throw your cape over your
hair, Ailie dear; the dew falls, and you'll be taking cold. There, it's
the godmother herself, and you'll confess it, on seeing what miracles
can be worked with this little ma