tive girl, Frank, and you have hurt her
feelings to the quick! Now, what is the reason of this--do you care for
her still?"

"Care for her! Miss Pimpernell," I said. "Why I love her--although I
did not intend telling you yet."

"As if I didn't know all about that already," said the old lady,
laughing cheerily. "Oh, you lovers, you lovers! You are just for all
the world like a herd of wild ostriches, that stick their heads in the
bush, and fancy that they are completely concealed from observation!
All of you imagine, that, because you do not take people into your
confidence, they are as blind as you are! Can't they see all that is
going on well enough; don't your very looks, much less your actions,
betray you? Why, Frank, I knew all about your case weeks ago, my boy!--
without any information from you or anybody else! Besides, you know, I
_ought_ to have some _little_ experience in such matters by this time;
for, every boy and girl in the parish has made me their confidante for
years and years past!" and she laughed again.

Miss Pimpernell was once more her cheery old self, quite restored to her
normal condition of good humour.

No one, I believe, ever saw her "put out" for more than five minutes
consecutively at the outside; and very seldom for so long, at that.

"Ah!" I ejaculated with a deep sigh, "I wish I had told you before.
Now, it is too late!"

"Too late!" she rejoined, briskly. "Too late! Nonsense; it's `never
too late to mend.'"

"It is in some cases," I said, as mournfully as Lady Dasher could have
spoken; "and this is one of them!"

It was all over, I thought, so, why talk about it any more? What was
done couldn't be helped!

"Rubbish!" replied Miss Pimpernell; "you've had a tiff with her, and
think you have parted for ever! You see, I know all about it without
your telling me. You lovers are ever quarrelling and making up again;
though, how you manage it, I can't think. But, Frank, there must always
be two to make a quarrel, and Minnie Clyde does not seem to have been
one to yours. Tell me why you have altered so towards her; and, let us
see whether old Sally cannot mend matters for you."

She looked at me so kindly that I made a clean breast of all my
troubles.

"Well, Frank!" she exclaimed, when I had got to the end of my story,
"you are a big stupid, in spite of all your cleverness! You are not a
bit sharper than the rest of your sex:--a woman has twice the insight of
any