cine was bent on fascinating him. She raised her eyebrows and lifted
her hands, in playful remonstrance. "Do remember it's _my_ room," she
said, "and take some little interest in it, for _my_ sake!"

"What do you want me to say?" he asked.

"Come and sit down by me." She made room for him on the sofa. Her one
favorite aspiration--the longing to excite envy in others--expressed
itself in her next words. "Say something pretty," she answered; "say you
would like to have such a room as this."

"I should like to have your prints," he remarked. "Will that do?"

"It wouldn't do--from anybody else. Ah, Mr. Morris, I know why you are
not as nice as you might be! You are not happy. The school has lost its
one attraction, in losing our dear Emily. You feel it--I know you feel
it." She assisted this expression of sympathy to produce the right
effect by a sigh. "What would I not give to inspire such devotion as
yours! I don't envy Emily; I only wish--" She paused in confusion,
and opened her fan. "Isn't it pretty?" she said, with an ostentatious
appearance of changing the subject. Alban behaved like a monster; he
began to talk of the weather.

"I think this is the hottest day we have had," he said; "no wonder you
want your fan. Netherwoods is an airless place at this season of the
year."

She controlled her temper. "I do indeed feel the heat," she admitted,
with a resignation which gently reproved him; "it is so heavy and
oppressive here after Brighton. Perhaps my sad life, far away from
home and friends, makes me sensitive to trifles. Do you think so, Mr.
Morris?"

The merciless man said he thought it was the situation of the house.

"Miss Ladd took the place in the spring," he continued; "and only
discovered the one objection to it some months afterward. We are in the
highest part of the valley here--but, you see, it's a valley surrounded
by hills; and on three sides the hills are near us. All very well in
winter; but in summer I have heard of girls in this school so out of
health in the relaxing atmosphere that they have been sent home again."

Francine suddenly showed an interest in what he was saying. If he had
cared to observe her closely, he might have noticed it.

"Do you mean that the girls were really ill?" she asked.

"No. They slept badly--lost appetite--started at trifling noises. In
short, their nerves were out of order."

"Did they get well again at home, in another air?"

"Not a doubt of it," he answer