"Certainly not! I have had an absolutely smooth life--too smooth, I am afraid, for the growth of character. Now I wonder what made you take such an idea into your head!" "I thought perhaps your heart was broken, and that was why you took no interest in anything that was going on." "Do I take no interest? I was under the impression that I took a great deal--sometimes; but I have learned to conceal my feelings. You may not perhaps be aware that English boys are educated in this fashion, nowadays. At a public school it is considered `bad form' to be enthusiastic on any subject. `Not bad' or `pretty decent' are the superlatives of praise, and anything more emphatic is sure to be snubbed. Perhaps I have been too apt a disciple in that school." "I call it a hateful school! and if I had a hundred sons I would not let one of them be trained under such an influence. If a boy is not to be enthusiastic when he is young, when will he be, pray? Youth is the time for noble dreams, for enthusiasm which carries all before it. It is the enthusiasm of youth which keeps the world moving. None of your languid half-measures for me!" declaimed Nan dramatically, backing into a flower-bed in her earnestness, and trampling half a dozen begonias beneath her heels. "Life is real--life is earnest!" "It is indeed," cried Gervase, laughing; "and so, if you will permit me to say so, is my uncle's gardener, when he is roused! Begonias, I fancy, are his special passion. Miss Nan, you will have to be friends with me whether you will or not, for our natures are so different that we could be of infinite service to each other. You could inspire me with your own enthusiasm, and I, in my turn, could curb and restrain you." "But, dear me," cried Nan, "I don't want to be curbed!" Then she looked at the begonias, and her face fell. "But I suppose, like all disagreeable things, it would be good for me; so I'll be friends, if you like, Mr Vanburgh, and take my share of the discipline." "I feel much honoured. It shall be my endeavour to be as little disagreeable as I can," said Gervase Vanburgh, with his courtly bow; and thus were the deeds signed in a friendship destined to have far-reaching consequences. CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. LILIAS INTERFERES. Nan's compact of friendship with Gervase Vanburgh was announced to the family, and received with acclamation by the younger sisters, and with shocked disapproval by grown-up Lilias. "Most improper!" she pronounced it. "You ought to remember, Nan, that you are no longer a child in the schoolroom, and that such an intimacy with a man of Mr Vanburgh's age is simply another word for flirtation. It is all very well to call it friendship, but everybody knows perfectly well what it means!" She stopped short with an expressive wave of the hands, and Nan glared at her with flashing eyes.