bitterly.

"Has your father been speaking unkindly to you?" I asked her, being much
surprised.

She shook her head, and a wet handkerchief plashed on my hand like a sob
as she shook it out.

"What is it, then?" I asked, more and more amazed at the turn things
were taking. Never had I thought for a moment that Charlotte would not
be as pleased and happy to have me as I was the reverse.

"Oh," she burst out at last, sobbing between each hurried phrase, "I
don't blame you, Duncan. It's all that horrid old cat, Miss
Seraphina--Diabolina, the girls call her--she writes everything we do to
our people at home. She's always writing, and she spies on us, too, and
listens--opens our letters! She has brought all this on me----"

"Brought what on you?" I inquired blankly.

"Having to marry you and all!" she said, and had recourse to her wet
handkerchief again. But that being altogether too sodden to afford her
any relief, she signalled to me, as if I had been Agnes Anne or another
girl, to pass her mine. Fortunately for once I could do so without
shame. For Miss Irma had been teaching me things--or at least the desire
to appear well in her eyes.

Charlotte Anderson did not appear to notice, but went on crying.

"And don't you want to marry me, Lottie?" I said softly, taking her
hand. She let me now, perhaps considered as the proprietor of the
handkerchief.

"Of course I don't," said she. "Oh, how could I?"

Now this, considered apart, was certainly hurtful to my pride. For,
having frequently considered my person, as revealed in my mother's big
Sunday mirror, I thought that she could very well. On my side there was
certainly nothing to render the matter impossible. Moreover, how about
our walks and talks! She had, then, merely been playing with me. Oh,
Perfidy, thy name is Woman!

I was silent and paused for an explanation. I soon got it, considered as
before, as the sympathetic owner of the handkerchief.

"It's Tam Galaberry," she said, "my cousin, you know, Duncan. He used to
come to see me ... before ... before you! But his sister went to
Dumfries to learn the high-class millinery, and since then Miss
Seraphina cannot thole him. As if he had anything to do with that. And
she wrote home, and my father threatened Tam to shoot him with the gun
if he came after me--all because we were cousins--and only seconds at
any rate. Oh-h-h-h! What _shall_ I do?"

I had to support Charlotte here--though merely as handkerchief-ho