Inside the summer house; book in hand likewise, sits Mr. Browne, a picture of studious virtue. Miss Kavanagh, seeing him, stops dead short, so great is her surprise, and Mr. Browne, raising his eyes, as if with difficulty, from the book on his knee, surveys her with a calmly judicial eye. "Not here. Not here, my child," quotes he, incorrectly. "You had better try next door." "Try for what?" demands she, indignantly. "For whom? You mean----" "No, I don't," with increasing anger. "Jocelyne!" says Mr. Browne, severely. "When one forsakes the path of truth it is only to tread in----" "Nonsense!" says Miss Kavanagh, irreverently. "As you will!" says he, meekly. "But I assure you he is not here." "I could have told you that," says she, coloring, however, very warmly. "I must say, Dicky, you are the most ingeniously stupid person I ever met in my life." "To shine in even the smallest line in life is to achieve something," says Mr. Browne, complacently. "And so you knew he wouldn't be here just now?" This is uttered in an insinuating tone. Miss Kavanagh feels she has made a false move. To give Dicky an inch is, indeed, to give him an ell. "He? Who?" says she, weakly. "Don't descend to dissimulation, Jocelyne," advises he, severely. "It's the surest road to ruin, if one is to believe the good old copy books. By he--you see I scorn subterfuge--I mean Dysart, the person to whom in a mistaken moment you have affianced yourself, as though I--I were not ready at any time to espouse you." "I'm not going to be espoused," says Miss Kavanagh, half laughing. "No? I quite understood----" "I won't have that word," petulantly. "It sounds like something out of the dark ages." "So does he," says Mr. Browne. "'Felix,' you know. So Latin! Quite like one of the old monks. I shouldn't wonder if he turned out a----" "I wish you wouldn't tease me, Dicky," says she. "You think you are amusing, you know, but I think you are one of the rudest people I ever met. I wish you would let me alone." "Ah! Why didn't you leave me alone?" says he, with a sigh that would have set a furnace ablaze. "However!" with a noble determination to overcome his grief. "Let the past lie. You want to go and meet Dysart, isn't that it? And I'll go and meet him with you. Could self-sacrifice further go? 'Jim along Josy,' no doubt he is at the upper gate by this time, flying on the wings of love." "He is not," says Joyce; "and I wish once for all, Dicky, that you wouldn't call me 'Josy.' 'Jocelyne' is bad enough, but 'Josy!' And I'm not going to 'jim' anywhere, and certainly"--with strong determination--"not with you." She looks at him with sudden curiosity. "What brought you here to-day?" asks she, most inhospitably it must be confessed. "What brings me here every day? To see the unkindest girl in the world."