"But it does not much matter," she said; "for he would have been afraid to climb up, when he found out really how high it was." "Don't talk stuff!" I said; "he would get up if it were twice as high, for my sake. Why, look how Leander swam the Hellespont." "And I say," cried Clara--laughing, and seeming in the highest of glee, which was too bad--"how cold and shivering he must have been when he got across. Bo-o-o-h?" she said, shuddering, "what a cold frog of a lover! I shouldn't have liked that." "No," I said, "you have no romance in your composition." "Haven't I," she said, "you don't know; but I'm not so head over ears in love as you are." "Perhaps not," I said, spitefully; "because you have no chance." "Pooh!" said Clara. "Why, I might have had Achille long before you came, if I had liked." "Perhaps, miss," I exclaimed, with nothing more than reasonable anger, "the next time you mention that gentleman's name you will prefix the Monsieur." "Certainly, ma'am," said Clara, aggravating me with her mock courtesy. "And whatever you do," I said, "if you must tease, tell the truth." "That was the truth," she replied. "Don't be such a wicked story," I exclaimed. "I don't believe it." I could not help thinking, after, that in my childish anger I had made use of childish language. "I don't care what you believe, and what you don't believe," said Clara, coolly; "and I've got--" "If you young ladies are not silent this minute," said Miss Furness, outside the door, "I shall be compelled to summon Mrs de Blount." As I lay wondering whether she had heard anything of our conversation, and what it was that Clara had got, and whether it was a letter Achille had sent her before I came, which I did not believe, and did not much care if he had, for he had not seen me then--Miss Furness stood listening at the door, while Clara would not answer my whispered questions, pretending to be offended; and I believe I heard Miss Furness sniff out in the cold passage just as I dropped off to sleep. CHAPTER SIXTEEN. MEMORY THE SIXTEENTH--PANGS. I meant in the last chapter to have told a great deal more; but so many of my troubles and misadventures kept creeping in, that I did not get in one-half of what I intended. What pains I took to gain an interview-- or, rather, to grant the poor fellow an interview, though it would have been to me the reaching of a green oasis in my journey across life's desert, when, for a short time, the gentle palm branches would have waved, as it were, in gentle motion above our heads, while our cheeks would have been fanned by the gentle breath of love.