fresh was every sight and sound
On open main, on winding shore!
We knew the merry world was round,
And we might sail for evermore.

"Frank, what do you mean by behaving so unkindly to Minnie Clyde?" was
the opening salutation of little Miss Pimpernell to me, the same
evening, when I called round again at the vicarage, like Telemachus, in
search of consolation.

I was so utterly miserable and disheartened at the conviction that
everything was over between Min and myself--at the sudden collapse of
all my eager hopes and ardent longings--that I felt I must speak to
somebody and unbosom myself; or else I should go out of my senses.

"_I_ behave unkindly to Miss Clyde!" I exclaimed, in astonishment at
her thus addressing me, before I could get out a word as to why I had
come to see her--"I--I--I--don't know what you mean, Miss Pimpernell?"

"You know, or ought to know very well, Frank, without my telling you,"
she rejoined; and there was a grave tone in her voice, for which I could
not account.

However, the dear old lady did not leave me long in doubt.

She was never in the habit of "beating about the bush;" but always spoke
out straight, plump and plain, to the point.

"Really, my boy," she continued, "I think there is no excuse for your
acting so strangely to the poor little girl, after all your attentions
and long intimacy!"

"But, Miss Pimpernell," I commenced; however, she quickly interrupted
me.

"`But me no buts,' Frank Lorton," she said, with more determination and
severity than she had ever used to me since I had known her. "I'm quite
angry with you. You have disappointed all my expectations, when I
thought I knew your character so well, too! Learn, that there is no one
I despise so much as a male flirt. Oh, Frank! I did not think you had
a grain of such little-mindedness in you! I believed you to be
straightforward, and earnest, and true. I'm sadly disappointed in you,
my boy; sadly disappointed!" and she shook her head reproachfully.

It was very hard being attacked in this way, when I had come for
consolation!

I had thought myself to be the injured party, whose wounds would have
been bound up, and oil and wine inpoured by the good Samaritan to whom I
had always looked as my staunchest ally; yet, here she was, upbraiding
me as a heartless deceiver, a role which I had never played in my life!

I did not know what to make of it.

What was she driving at?

"I assure you, Miss Pimper