itted out of
the room. At the door she turned and said,

"You needn't think it's what you think it is, Fanny."

"No indeed, dear; you're just overwrought."

"For I really wish he'd go."

But it was on this very day that Mr. Arbuton found it harder than ever
to renew his resolution of quitting Quebec, and cutting short at once
his acquaintance with these people. He had been pledging himself to this
in some form every day, and every morrow had melted his resolution away.
Whatever was his opinion of Colonel and Mrs. Ellison, it is certain
that, if he considered Kitty merely in relation to the present, he could
not have said how, by being different, she could have been better than
she was. He perceived a charm, that would be recognized anywhere, in her
manner, though it was not of his world; her fresh pleasure in all she
saw, though he did not know how to respond to it, was very winning; he
respected what he thought the good sense running through her transports;
he wondered at the culture she had somewhere, somehow got; and he was so
good as to find that her literary enthusiasms had nothing offensive, but
were as pretty and naive as a girl's love of flowers. Moreover, he
approved of some personal attributes of hers: a low, gentle voice,
tender long-lashed eyes; a trick of drooping shoulders, and of idle
hands fallen into the lap, one in the other's palm; a serene repose of
face; a light and eager laugh. There was nothing so novel in those
traits, and in different combination he had seen them a thousand times;
yet in her they strangely wrought upon his fancy. She had that soft,
kittenish way with her which invites a caressing patronage, but, as he
learned, she had also the kittenish equipment for resenting
over-condescension; and she never took him half so much as when she
showed the high spirit that was in her, and defied him most.

For here and now, it was all well enough; but he had a future to which
he owed much, and a conscience that would not leave him at rest. The
fascination of meeting her so familiarly under the same roof, the
sorcery of the constant sight of her, were becoming too much; it would
not do on any account; for his own sake he must put an end to it. But
from hour to hour he lingered upon his unenforced resolve. The passing
days, that brought him doubts in which he shuddered at the great
difference between himself and her and her people, brought him also
moments of blissful forgetfulness in which his